UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT  LOS  ANGELES 


CONTRIBUTIONS 


TO 


MENTAL    PATHOLOGY. 


By  I.  RAY,  M.D.. 


AUTHOR  OF    ''MEDICAL  JURISPRUDENCE   OF   INSANITY, 
AND    "MENTAL   HYGIENE." 


BOSTON: 

LITTLE,    BROWN,    AND    COMPANY. 
1873. 


Y    9  4  o      6    ;^  1  j  J 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1873,  by 

I.     RAT, 

In  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington. 


CAMBRIDGE  : 
PRESS  OF  JOHN   WILSON   AND   SON. 


PEEFACE 


The  contents  of  this  volume,  with  two  exceptions, 
have  already  appeared  in  print.  I  am  induced  to  put 
them  into  a  more  accessible  shape,  for  the  reasons  that, 
since  their  first  appearance,  the  subjects  they  discuss 
have  lost  none  of  their  original  interest;  that  many  of 
the  questions  they  present  are  far  from  being  settled  : 
and  that  the  public  are  seeking  for  information  respect- 
ing a  disease  that  has  most  important  relations  to  private 
happiness  and  social  order.  In  making  this  selection 
from  a  much  larger  number  of  contributions  to  the 
literature  of  insanity,  I  have  chosen  such  only  as  pre- 
sent the  disease  in  those  aspects  which  have  become 
peculiarly  interesting,  either  from  a  signal  advance  in 
knowledge,  or  some  particular  circumstance  of  the 
time,  or  some  remarkable  social,  legal,  or  t  aesthetic 
relation.  Though  written  on  different  occasions,  the 
reader  will  find  them,  I  trust,  not  entirely  deficient  in 
that  unity  of  doctrine  and  purpose  which  is  expected 
in  a  systematic  treatise.  They  are  given  now  with 
scarcely  any  other  alteration  than  an  occasional  change 


IV  PREFACE. 

of  phraseology,  and  the  omission  of  personal  and  local 
allusions  which  have  lost  their  original  interest.  From 
the  scope  of  this  remark,  I  must  except  the  paper  on 
George  the  Third,  the  most  of  which  has  been  re- 
written, in  order  to  avail  myself  of  the  new  materials 
since  presented  in  the  various  Memoirs  and  Diaries  of 
persons  who  had  access  to  the  court,  or  had  other  op- 
portunities of  learning  about  its  concerns. 

Though  the  lawyer  and  physician  will  meet  with 
much  in  the  book  strictly  within  the  line  of  their  pro- 
fessional studies,  yet  the  general  reader  will  find  in  it 
nothing    unworthy    the    attention    of    any    thoughtful 

mind. 

I.  R. 

Philadelphia, 

January  1,  1873. 


CONTENTS 


Address  on  the  Occasion  of  laying  the  Corner- Stone 
of  the  State  Hospital  for  the  Insane,  at  Danville, 
Penn.,  August  26,  1869 1 

Causes  of  Insanity. 

Reports  of  Butler  Hospital,  1863,  186-1 25 

Statistics  of  Insanity. 

American  Journal  of  Insanity,  July,  1819 66 

Objections  to  Moral  Insanity  Considered. 

American  Journal  of  Insanity,  October,  1861     .  " .     .     .       97 

Doubtful  Recoveries. 

American  Journal  of  Insanity,  July,  1836 121 

Delusions  and  Hallucinations. 

American  Journal  of  Medical  Sciences,  July,  1868     .     .     112 

(  onfinemext  of  the  Insane. 

American  Law  Review,  January,  1869 168 

The  Law  of  Insanity  in  Criminal  Cases 203 


VI  CONTENTS. 

The  Trial  of  Rogers. 

Law  Reporter,  February,  1845 210 

The  Trial  of  Baker. 

American  Journal  of  Insanity,  July,  1846 229 

The  Trial  of  C.  A. 

American  Journal  of  Insanity,  January,  1856      ....     239 

The  Trial  of  Cangley. 

American  Journal  of  Insanity,  July,   1865 252 

The  Trial  of  Winnemore. 

American  Journal  of  Insanity,  October,  1867      ....     264 

Insanity  of  Seduced  or  Deserted  Women. 

American  Journal  of  Insanity,  October,   1866      ....     282 

The  Hinchman  Case. 

Law  Reporter,  August,   1849 294 

The  Parish. Will  Case. 

Medical  Opinions  in  the  Parish  Will  Case 315 

The  Angell  Will  Case. 

American  Journal  of  Insanity,  October,  1863      ....     345 

Management  of  Hospitals  for  the  Insane. 

Report  of  Butler  Hospital,  1863 391 

Medical  Experts. 

Read   to    the   American    Social    Science    Association,    at 
Philadelphia,  October,    1870 409 


CONTENTS.  Vli 

Insanity  of  King  George  the  Third. 

American  Journal  of  Insanity,  July,  1855 433 

Shakespeare's  Illustrations  of  Insanity. 

American  Journal  of  Insanity,  April,  1847 482 

Illustrations    of    Insanity    by   Distinguished   English 
Writers. 
American  Journal  of  Insanity,  October,  1847     ....     534 


A  D   D  E  E   S   S 


DELIVERED  OX  THE   OCCASION   OF 


LAYING   THE   CORNER-STONE   OF   THE   STATE   HOSPITAL 
FOR   THE    LNSANE,   AT   DANVILLE,   PENN. 

August  26,  1869. 


We  have  come  together,  my  friends,  to  lay  the  foun- 
dation of  an  Institution  very  unlike  the  most  of  those 
that  give  rise  to  occasions  like  this.  The  structure 
whose  massive  walls  are  to  rest  on  this  spot  is  to  com- 
memorate no  victory  of  war,  no  triumph  of  a  cause 
achieved  by  sacrifices  of  life  and  property.  It  is  de- 
signed to  minister  to  the  advancement  and  glory  of  no 
sect  or  party,  however  worthy  its  ends.  It  is  designed 
to  be  not  even  a  storehouse  of  the  treasures  of  science 
and  art  for  the  promotion  of  knowledge  and  the  refine- 
ment of  taste.  No,  my  friends,  it  is  nothing  of  the  kind. 
I  am  not  here  for  the  purpose  of  kindling  anew  the  fires 
of  patriotism,  or  of  inspiring  you  with  fresh  zeal  in  some 
popular  association  of  the  day,  or  of  awakening  your 
admiration  of  the  works  of  nature  and  the  products  of 
genius.  The  institution  which  we  now  inaugurate  with 
solemn  ceremonies  has  in  it  no  element  of  the  heroic  or 
romantic.  It  makes  no  appeal  to  the  fancy ;  it  can  excite 
no  enthusiasm;  it  demands  no  personal  sacrifice.  On 
the  contrary,  it  springs  from  those  common  instincts  and 
virtues  of  our  nature   which  have  received  from  the 

1 


Z  ADDRESS   AT   DANVILLE. 

civilizing  and  christianizing  influences  of  our  time  a 
scope  and  direction  unknown  to  the  polished  nations 
of  antiquity.  To  relieve  suffering  both  of  body  and 
mind ;  to  rescue  helpless  men  and  women  from  practices 
discreditable  even  to  a  barbarous  age ;  to  lead  back  the 
wandering  mind  out  of  the  darkness  and  mazes  of  dis- 
ease into  the  unclouded  light  of  reason  ;  to  remove  from 
many  a  home  some  stricken  one  whom  all  the  arts  of 
affection  only  serve  to  embitter  rather  than  to  console 
and  heal ;  to  lighten  the  burden  of  those  who  have  ex- 
hausted their  strength  and  their  means  in  caring  for 
some  cherished  member  of  the  family  circle  ;  to  improve 
this  ministry  to  the  disordered  mind  by  the  intelligent 
application  of  medical  science,  —  such  are  the  ends  which 
it  belongs  to  enterprises  like  this  to  fulfil.  Is  it  not 
worthy  of  our  warmest  sympathy,  our  deepest  respect, 
our  strongest  help  ?  Is  it  not  fitting  that  it  should  be 
inaugurated  with  the  solemnities  we  have  witnessed; 
that  the  Chief  Magistrate  of  the  Commonwealth  should 
lend  the  dignity  of  his  character  and  his  office  to  the 
imposing  ceremonial ;  that  the  ministers  of  our  holy  re- 
ligion should  invoke  upon  it  the  blessing  of  Almighty 
God ;  that  the  people  of  this  community  should  come 
together  to  testify  their  interest  in  the  work  ? 

What,  then,  is  the  evil  we  seek  to  relieve  ?  What 
part  does  it  bear  in  the  economy  of  this  our  modern 
life  ?  To  say  that  insanity  is  the  loss  of  reason  —  the 
great  prerogative  of  man  —  conveys  to  the  dullest  un- 
derstanding the  fact  of  a  great  calamity  to  the  sufferer 
himself;  but  no  one  without  a  professional  acquaintance 
with  the  subject  can  have  any  thing  like  an  adequate 
idea  of  the  extent  and  variety  of  the  misery  inflicted  by 
this  plague  of  our  race.  From  one  thus  qualified  we  may 
obtain  a  more  particular  and  definite  conception  of  what 


ADDRESS   AT   DANVILLE.  3 

is  meant  by  this  word  —  insanity.     It  means  a  measure 
of  distress  that  no  bodily  ill  can  produce.     It  may  mean 
a  painful  struggle  between  the  convictions  of  reason 
and  the  suggestions  of  disease,  while  the  mind  is  tor- 
tured with  the  dread  of  the  approaching  calamity.     It 
may  mean  the  absorption  of  the  whole  soul  in  one  single, 
horrible  idea,  none  the  less  horrible  because  it  is  false  as 
regarded  by  others.     It  may  mean  that  depression  of 
spirit  in  which  the  whole  universe,  material  and  moral, 
seems  to  be  enveloped  in  a  funeral  pall ;  or,  as  the  poet 
of  all  time  has  described  it  with  inimitable  fidelity  and 
beauty,  when  man  delighteth  not,  nor  woman  neither, 
and  this  goodly  frame,  the  earth,  seems  a  sterile  promon- 
tory ;  this  most  excellent  canopy,  the  air,  this  brave, 
overhanging  firmament,  this  majestical  roof  fretted  with 
golden  fire,  appears  no  other  thing  than  a  foul  and  pesti- 
lent congregation  of  vapors.     It  may  mean  a  state  of 
jealousy  and   suspicion  in  which  every  creature,  even 
the  nearest  and  dearest,  seems  to  be  an  enemy  ready  for 
any  conceivable  mischief  or  annoyance.    It  may  mean  a 
paroxysm  of  fury  or  an  overpowering  delusion,  ending 
in  a  scene  of  blood  and  carnage,  the  dearest  and  most 
cherished  being  the   victims.      It   may   mean   a    com- 
plete change  of  character    and   habits,  —  a   course    of 
idleness  and  neglect  of  duty  in  place  of  industry  and  a 
scrupulous   discharge  of  all  the  requirements  of  life ; 
indifference,  perhaps    hostility,  towards   the  objects  of 
the  tenderest  affection ;  hurry  and  restlessness  without 
measure  or  motive,  in  place  of  an  habitually  calm  and 
judicious  movement ;    extravagant    expenditure   and  a 
reckless,  lawless  habit  of  living,  in  place  of  rigid  exact- 
ness and  an  exemplary  demeanor.     It  may  also  mean  a 
perpetual  sense  of  anxiety  and  apprehension,  for  months 
or  years  together,  pervading  a  family  circle  once   the 


4  ADDRESS   AT   DANVILLE. 

abode  of  peace  and  love  and  mutual  confidence  ;  and 
extreme  destitution  where  once  were  prosperity  and 
plenty. 

Such  are  the  things  which  are  meant  by  insanity,  but 
a  far  more  deplorable  feature  remains  to  be  mentioned. 
This  fearful  malady,  not  content  with  its  ravages  on  the 
individual,  re-appears  in  his  children  and  his  children's 
children,  vitiating  the  very  principle  of  life  which  he 
has  transmitted. 

Is  it  strange,  then,  that  peculiar  interest  attaches  to 
this  disease,  and  that  special  and  costly  arrangements 
should  be  provided  even  by  the  State  for  the  purpose  of 
mitigating  its  evils?  And  yet  such  arrangements,  with 
a  few  trifling  exceptions,  are  of  comparatively  recent 
origin.  Even  among  the  most  civilized  nations,  the  lot 
of  the  insane,  bad  as  it  is  at  best,  was  made  still  more 
wretched  by  the  manner  in  which  they  were  treated. 
In  cases  where  the  recuperative  powers  speedily  effected 
a  recovery,  little  harm  was  done.  But  if  the  disease 
became  seated  and  all  hope  of  recovery  had  fled,  the  dis- 
posal of  the  patient  was  determined  solely  by  regard  to 
the  safety  or  convenience  of  society.  In  this  country, 
if  he  were  considered,  as  most  of  them  were,  to  be 
dangerous  to  persons  or  destructive  to  property,  he  was 
thrust  into  a  cell  in  the  county  jail,  or  a  cage  in  the  poor- 
house,  or  a  strong,  dark  room  on  his  own  premises,  his 
limbs,  probably,  loaded  with  restraints,  and  his  wrants 
supplied  very  much  like  those  of  the  brutes  whose  quar- 
ters he  may  have  shared.  And  it  could  not  well  be 
otherwise.  Sooner  or  later,  in  most  cases,  the  patient 
becomes  intractable,  acknowledging  no  guide  nor  law 
but  his  own  disordered  will.  His  ways  and  his  views 
are  incompatible  with  the  peace  and  safety  of  a  well- 
regulated  household.     Every  day  witnesses  some  scene 


ADDRESS    AT   DANVILLE.  5 

of  discord,  strife,  and  terror.  Excited  and  restless,  he 
roams  about  without  end  or  object,  alarming  the  timid, 
wasting  his  substance,  and  adding  fresh  fuel  to  the  fire 
that  is  consuming  his  senses.  The  family  means,  never 
large,  perhaps,  are  finally  exhausted.  The  utmost  efforts 
of  the  other  members  can  scarcely  keep  the  wolf  from 
the  door,  and  they  are  driven  to  the  last  resort,  —  close 
confinement.  Thenceforth,  the  places  that  knew  him 
will  know  him  no  more.  His  seat  at  the  fireside  is 
vacant.  The  face  of  nature,  the  sun,  moon,  and  stars, 
the  smiling  fields,  the  ripening  crops,  will  no  more  glad- 
den his  eye  ;  the  breezes  of  heaven,  the  hum  of  industry, 
the  prattle  of  children,  will  no  more  greet  his  ear., 
Though  not  entirely  dead  to  all  the  sweet  influences  of 
life,  yet  they  will  visit  him  no  more.  When,  from  time 
to  time,  as  the  tumult  of  his  disease  subsides,  some  throb 
of  his  old  affections,  some  touch  of  his  kindlier  nature, 
some  glimpse  of  the  high  estate  from  which  he  has  fallen, 
reveals  a  spark  of  the  Divinity  that  stirs  within  us,  no 
wise  and  friendly  ministry  will  be  near  to  cherish  the 
sacred  fire,  and  cause  it  to  illumine,  though  never  so 
feebly,  the  dreary  pathway  before  him. 

Such  is  a  picture  of  the  insane  that  was  frequently  ex- 
hibited up  to  a  very  recent  period,  and  many  an' original 
may  yet  be  seen  at  this  moment,  within  the  limits  of  our 
own  State.  The  time  came  at  last  when  the  public  feel- 
ing called  for  a  change ;  and  it  is  a  matter  of  pleasing 
reflection,  peculiarly  fit  to  be  remembered  on  an  occa- 
sion like  this,  that  the  Province  of  Pennsylvania  was  the 
first  of  all  those  communities  which,  in  the  fulness  of 
time,  grew  up  into  this  glorious  Union,  to  recognize  its 
duties  to  the  insane,  and  to  proceed  to  perform  them 
in  a  liberal,  generous  spirit,  without  precedent  either  in 
the  New  or  the  Old  World.     In  1752  some  benevolent 


6  ADDRESS   AT   DANVILLE. 

persons  in  Philadelphia  joined  in  a  petition  to  the  House 
of  Representatives,  in  which  they  say  that  "  with  the 
numbers  of  people  the  numbers  of  lunatics,  or  persons 
distempered  in  mind,  and  deprived  of  their  rational 
faculties,  hath  greatly  increased  in  this  province  ;  that 
some  of  them  going  at  large  are  a  terror  to  their  neigh- 
bors, who  are  daily  apprehensive  of  the  violences  they 
may  commit,  and  others  are  continually  wasting  their 
substance,  to  the  great  injury  of  themselves  and  fami- 
lies, ill-disposed  persons  wickedly  taking  advantage  of 
their  unhappy  condition,  and  drawing  them  into  unrea- 
sonable bargains ;  that  few  of  them  are  so  sensible  of 
itheir  condition  as  to  submit  voluntarily  to  the  treatment 
their  respective  cases  require,  and  therefore  continue  in 
the  same  deplorable  state  during  their  lives."  For  the 
purpose  of  affording  those  and  other  sick  persons  suita- 
ble care  and  treatment,  they  solicit  the  aid  of  the  House, 
in  establishing  a  "  small,  provincial  hospital,"  which, 
they  declare,  "  will  be  a  good  work,  acceptable  to  God, 
and  to  all  the  good  people  they  represent."  Their  prayer 
was  granted.  An  act  of  incorporation  was  passed,  two 
thousand  pounds  were  promised,  on  condition  that  an 
equal  sum  should  be  raised  from  private  sources,  the 
hospital,  extemporized  out  of  a  dwelling-house,  was 
opened,  Feb.  11,  1752  j  and  it  is  a  noteworthy  fact  bear- 
ing upon  the  original  design,  that  of  the  first  four  pa- 
tients admitted  three  were  insane.  Thus  originated  the 
Pennsylvania  Hospital,  and  no  benevolent  institution  in 
our  country  has  pursued  a  nobler  or  a  wider  career. 
Nor  should  it  be  forgotten,  as  another  claim  on  our 
gratitude,  that  it  furnished  Dr.  Rush  with  the  materials 
for  his  work  on  "  Diseases  of  the  Mind," — the  first  of 
the  kind  in  the  English  tongue,  displaying  thorough 
observation  and  original  thought. 


ADDRESS   AT   DANVILLE.  7 

I  have  said  deliberately  that  this  example  was  without 
precedent.  Bethlehem,  the  only  hospital  at  that  time  in 
the  mother  country  exclusively  for  the  insane,  sprung 
from  an  old  religious  House,  and  was  supported  chiefly 
by  its  charitable  endowments.  In  Catholic  countries,  the 
insane  were  then  kept  in  old  monasteries,  at  the  expense 
of  the  State  or  the  Church,  but  with  a  deprivation  of 
comfort  and  with  positive  hardships,  which  one  can 
hardly  read  of  without  a  shudder.  In  one  sense  they 
were  public  establishments,  but  the  public  felt  no  in- 
terest in  their  work ;  and  by  the  government  they  were 
regarded  as  a  means  of  police  for  the  custody  of  danger- 
ous subjects,  rather  than  as  institutions  for  the  relief  of 
suffering,  or  the  promotion  of  recovery. 

The  example  of  the  Pennsylvania  Hospital  was,  ap- 
parently, not  without  its  legitimate  influence.  In  1773, 
the  State  of  Virginia  opened  at  Williamsburg  a  hospital 
exclusively  for  the  insane,  and  to  that  State  belongs  the 
credit  of  having  been  the  first  to  provide  such  an  estab- 
lishment at  the  public  expense.  Many  years  elapsed,  I 
am  sorry  to  say,  before  this  worthy  example  was  fol- 
lowed ;  nor  was  the  great  want  supplied  by  associations 
like  that  which  founded  the  Pennsylvania  Hospital,  nor 
by  individuals,  as  in  the  private  asylums  of  England. 
The  latter  class  of  enterprises  was  almost  unknown  in 
this  country  until  the  beginning  of  the  present  century, 
for  they  required  a  knowledge  of  insanity  not  easily  ob- 
tained by  our  physicians,  an  outlay  of  capital  which  few 
of  them  possessed,  and  a  rate  of  prices  greatly  beyond 
the  means  of  our  people.  In  process  of  time,  they  made 
their  appearance,  few  and  far  between,  but  their  benefits 
were  confined  to  the  affluent  classes. 

The  most  noticeable  event  in  the  history  of  the  cause 
we  are  now  considering  was  the  establishment  of  a  hos- 


o  ADDBESS   AT   DANVILLE. 

pital  in  York,  England,  by  the  Society  of  Friends,  in 
1796.  True  to  their  characteristic  principles  of  peace, 
quiet,  and  goodwill  to  men,  the  movers  in  this  enter- 
prise conceived  that  the  insane  could  be  more  success- 
fully managed  by  mild  and  gentle  methods  than  by  the 
harsh  and  coercive  practices  that  then  prevailed  both  in 
public  and  private  asylums.  We  of  this  generation  have 
been  familiar  with  such  different  ways  that  we  find  it 
difficult  to  believe  what  we  are  told  on  unquestionable 
authority  respecting  the  treatment  pursued  in  those 
day^.  I  do  not  refer  to  chains,  or  close  confinement, 
though  they  were  common  enough,  but  rather  to  the 
principle  which  underlaid  this  treatment.  It  was  sup- 
posed to  be  the  fundamental  step  in  the  management 
of  the  insane,  to  make  them  feel  that  they  were  in  the 
hands  of  a  keeper  who  required  implicit  obedience, 
and  whose  look  must  be  sufficient  to  put  down  the 
slightest  show  of  resistance.  In  one  word,  their  will 
was  to  be  broken,  and  they  were  to  know  no  other  will 
but  that  of  their  keeper.  Of  course  such  an  end  could 
not  be  obtained  without  some  severe  discipline.  And 
there  was  no  concealment  nor  disguise  in  the  matter.  It 
was  understood  by  all  parties  concerned  to  be  the  way, 
and  the  only  way,  whereby  the  insane  could  be  success- 
fully managed.  Against  the  whole  of  it,  however,  the 
Friends  entered  their  most  emphatic  protest,  and  the 
experiment  at  York  showed  conclusively  that  their  work 
was  as  good  as  their  faith.  For  the  first  time  in  the 
world,  there  was  witnessed  a  considerable  collection  of 
insane  persons  enjoying  a  measure  of  comfort,  never 
before  supposed  to  be  within  their  capacity,  without  a 
blow,  or  a  chain,  or  a  harsh  wrord. 

Impressed  by  this  noble  work,  the  Friends  in  this  State 
took  measures  to  obtain  a  similar  institution  here,  and 


ADDRESS   AT   DANVILLE.  9 

the  result  was  the  asylum  in  Frankfort,  opened  in  1817. 
Improving  upon  the  course  of  the  English  Friends,  they 
chose  a  place  in  the  country  somewhat  remote  from  the 
village,  having  plenty  of  land,  and  furnishing  abundant 
opportunity  for  walking,  driving,  and  working.  No  single 
advance  on  prevalent  ideas  has  been  followed  by  greater 
good  to  the  insane  than  this.  A  considerable  tract  of 
land,  amounting  to  hundreds  of  acres,  is  now  considered 
as  indispensable  an  appendage  to  a  public  hospital  for 
the  insane,  as  arrangements  for  bathing,  or  warming  and 
ventilation. 

Thus  far,  it  will  be  observed,  no  State,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  Virginia,  had  provided  hospital  accommodation  for 
its  insane,  and  such  continued  to  be  the  case  until  the 
year  1832,  when  the  State  of  Massachusetts  established 
one  in  Worcester,  erected  and  furnished  at  its  sole  ex- 
pense. True,  the  bounty  of  a  State  had  been  bestowed 
in  a  few  cases  in  aid  of  enterprises  undertaken  by  be- 
nevolent persons  for  the  benefit  of  the  insane,  but  the 
end  could  be  effectually  reached  only  by  taking  a  new 
and  higher  ground.  This  kind  of  aid  had  been  granted 
as  an  act  of  grace,  to  be  given  or  withheld,  according  as 
it  might  suit  the  conveniences  or  caprice  of  the  State  ; 
thenceforth  it  was  to  be  considered  a  matter  of  obliga- 
tion, with  all  the  force  if  not  the  authority  of  a  legal 
enactment.  The  late  Horace  Mann,  standing  in  his 
place  in  the  Legislature  of  Massachusetts,  uttered  that 
memorable  declaration  that  the  pauper  insane  are  the 
wards  of  the  State.  It  was  an  instance  of  that  quick 
discernment  of  a  great  moral  truth  which  comes  like  a 
flash  of  inspiration.  It  taught  the  people,  once  and  for- 
ever, the  exact  nature  of  their  relations  to  this  class  of 
their  fellow-creatures.  They  were  to  be  regarded  not 
merely  as  paupers  reduced  to  the  lowest  grade  of  the 


10  ADDRESS   AT   DANVILLE. 

social  scale,  perhaps  by  vicious  indulgence,  and  entitled 
only  to  that  lowest  measure  of  care  and  sustenance  com- 
patible with  the  preservation  of  life  ;  nor  as  criminals, 
and  therefore  proper  subjects  of  penal  discipline.  They 
were  to  be  regarded  as  wards  of  the  State,  and  under 
that  relation  entitled  to  a  degree  of  consideration  to  be 
measured  only  by  an  active,  intelligent,  liberal  humanity. 
There  were  a  few  who  regarded  the  idea  as  quixotic, — 
the  utterance  of  a  man  of  ardent  feelings  and  benevolent 
instincts,  whose  zeal  had  quite  outrun  his  judgment. 
Looking  at  the  subject,  however,  from  the  higher  stand- 
point at  which  we  have  now  arrived,  we  do  not  hesitate 
to  pronounce  it  to  be  the  offspring  of  a  broad  and  lofty 
view  of  human  responsibility  and  a  belief  in  the  great 
brotherhood  of  man  as  a  ground  of  social  obligation. 

The  example  of  Massachusetts,  executed  as  well  as 
conceived  in  a  most  generous  manner,  was  followed  by 
other  States,  one  after  another,  so  that  now,  in  all 
except  one  or  two  of  the  newest,  there  exists  more  or 
less  public  provision  for  the  insane.  Why  a  beneficent 
enterprise,  so  much  needed  and  so  long  deferred,  should 
so  suddenly  have  risen  into  popular  favor,  is  a  matter  of 
instructive  inquiry,  and  so  germane  to  the  purposes  of 
this  occasion  that  I  venture  to  give  it  a  moment's 
attention. 

First  and  foremost,  unquestionably,  among  the  inci- 
dents that  gave  rise  to  this  movement,  was  the  example 
of  the  corporate  hospitals.  Few  as  they  were,  and 
cramped  in  their  means,  the  work  they  were  doing 
was  sufficiently  striking  to  excite  reflection  in  every 
thoughtful  observer.  The  spectacle  they  presented  was 
a  practical  denial  and  disproof  of  the  prevalent  notions 
respecting  the  management  of  the  insane.  Here  was  a 
scene  of  quiet,  good  order,  and  no  small  amount  of  com- 


ADDRESS   AT  DANYDLLE.  11 

fort,  if  not  enjoyment,  where  all  traditionary  belief  would 
have  led  one  to  expect  only  noise,  turbulence,  and 
unmitigated  wretchedness.  Here  it  was  demonstrated 
beyond  question,  that,  with  an  occasional  exception, 
strength  and  force  were  not  only  unnecessary  elements 
in  the  management  of  the  insane,  but  were  positively 
detrimental.  In  view  of  such  results,  it  was  impossible 
to  suppress  some  uncomfortable  reflections  respecting 
the  condition  of  those  who  had  been  consigned  for  safe 
keeping  to  the  jails  and  poor-houses,  where  brute  force 
was  the  ready  substitute  for  skill  and  kindness.  Such  a 
flagrant  discrepancy  would  seem  to  be  an  imputation  on 
the  justice  and  intelligence  of  the  community,  that  could 
be  removed  only  by  admitting  all  the  insane  to  an  equal 
share  in  all  the  privileges  that  the  science  and  philan- 
thropy of  the  age  had  provided.  Private  beneficence 
was'  obviously  inadequate  to  meet  the  requirements  of 
the  case.  No  power  less  than  that  of  the  State  could 
cope  with  the  tremendous  necessity. 

Most  fortunately,  too,  as  if  to  confirm  a  favorite  belief, 
—  that  when  a  great  exigency  arises,  the  right  man  or 
woman  will  be  found  ready  to  meet  it,  a  young  woman 
in  Massachusetts,  about  this  time,  became  deeply  inter- 
ested in  the  condition  of  the  insane,  and  thenceforth 
devoted  her  time  to  the  noble  purpose  of  effecting  its 
improvement.  With  this  end  in  view  she  visited  the 
jails,  prisons,  and  poor-houses  in  her  native  State,  and 
subsequently  in  other  States,  that  she  might  see  for  her- 
self precisely  what  that  condition  was.  No  place  was  so 
distant,  no  circumstances  so  repulsive,  no  lack  of  wel- 
come so  obvious,  as  to  deter  her  from  the  thorough  per- 
formance of  her  mission.  Neither  the  storms  of  winter 
nor  the  heats  of  summer  could  diminish  the  ardor  of  her 
zeal,  and  no  kind  of  discouragement  could  prevent  her 


12  ADDRESS   AT   DANVILLE. 

from  gauging  exactly  the  dimensions  of  this  particular 
form  of  human  misery.  Favored  by  that  exquisite  tact 
and  happy  address  peculiar  to  her  sex,  she  overcame 
obstacles  that  would  have  defied  the  ruder  efforts  of  the 
other  sex,  and  thus  brought  to  light  a  mass  of  suffering 
that  seemed  more  like  an  extravagant  fiction  than  real, 
unexaggerated  truth.  Thus  prepared,  she  went  before 
the  Legislatures  of  the  several  States  in  which  her 
inquiries  were  pursued,  and  in  the  name  of  humanity 
implored  them  to  put  an  end  to  practices  that  would 
shock  even  a  barbarous  people.  This  appeal  was  en- 
forced, not  by  vague  sentimentalisms  about  the  soften- 
ing influences  of  kindness,  or  the  debasement  produced 
by  such  harsh  and  heartless  treatment,  but  by  a  mul- 
titude of  cases  given  in  all  their  appalling  details.  It  is 
creditable  to  our  people  that  this  appeal  was  seldom 
made  in  vain,  but  was  usually  followed  by  an  act  estab- 
lishing a  State  hospital  for  the  insane. 

But  probably  these  things  would  not  have  had  their 
legitimate  effect  without  the  aid  of  those  influences, 
none  the  less  potent  because  less  obtrusive,  designated 
generally  as  the  "  spirit  of  the  age."  In  a  careful 
review  of  the  events  of  the  present  century,  one  can- 
not help  being  struck  with  the  fact  that,  about  the  period 
in  question,  there  began  a  remarkable  moral  and  intel- 
lectual uprising,  that  reached  every  department  of 
thought  and  action.  It  was  witnessed  in  a  clearer  and 
wider  outlook  over  the  whole  field  of  human  require- 
ment, in  a  livelier  faith  in  the  possibility  of  human 
endeavor,  in  a  keener  sense  of  social  obligation.  My 
limits  will  not  allow  me  to  dwell  on  this  point.  Suffice 
it  to  say  that,  at  a  period  when  slavery  was  abolished  in 
the  British  West  Indies,  and  many  a  soul  was  longing 
and  praying  for  the  same  blessed  consummation  here, 


ADDRESS   AT   DAXVILLE.  13 

in  some  constitutional  way  ;  when  the  cry  for  a  larger 
measure  of  liberty  began  to  arise  from  every  people  in 
Europe ;  when  steamships  and  telegraphs  were  shorten- 
ing the  distance  between  nations,  and  thereby  making 
them  better  acquainted  with  one  another's  wants,  sym- 
pathies, and  aspirations  j  when  education  was  casting 
off  the  last  of  its  mediasval  vestments,  and  science  had 
started  on  a  new  career  of  discovery,  —  it  is  not  strange 
that  men  should  have  been  startled  by  the  wrongs  of 
the  insane,  thus  exposed  in  all  their  terrible  details,  and 
should  have  resolved  on  assuming  their  rightful  office 
of  care  and  guardianship. 

In  justice  to  the  hospitals,  let  me  say  in  this  connec- 
tion that,  in  their  turn,  they  have  repaid  their  debt 
to  society,  by  diffusing  benefits  besides  those  immedi- 
ately connected  with  the  care  of  the  insane.  We  have 
been  so  impressed  by  the  immediate  effects  of  this  be- 
nevolent enterprise,  that  the  good  which  has  come  from 
it  indirectly  has  been  in  danger  of  being  wholly  over- 
looked. To  have  restored  the  light  of  reason  to  thou- 
sands and  made  comparatively  comfortable  tens  of 
thousands  is,  certainly,  a  noble  work;  but  let  us  not 
be  insensible  to  the  light  it  has  thrown  upon  the  dark 
places  of  mental  philosophy,  and  of  civil  and  criminal 
jurisprudence ;  upon  the  temperament  and  habits  of 
men,  and  the  course  of  human  conduct.  It  will  hardly 
be  disputed  that,  without  a  correct  philosophy  of  the 
mind,  we  shall  strive  in  vain  to  master  the  great  ques- 
tions of  moral  and  political  science  that  deeply  involve 
the  happiness  of  men.  Neither  will  it  be  disputed  by 
many,  I  apprehend,  that  the  actual,  available  knowledge 
contained  in  the  writings  of  all  the  metaphysicians, 
from  Plato  down  to  Dugald  Stewart,  is  marvellously 
small,  when  compared  with  the  mass  of  words  m  which 


14  ADDRESS   AT   DANVILLE. 

it  is  conveyed.  To  the  student  familiar  with  the 
exacter  methods  of  modern  investigation,  the  reason 
is  obvious.  The  properties  of  organic  matter,  the 
nature  of  its  functions,  and  the  laws  which  regulate  its 
action,  cannot  be  thoroughly  understood  without  observ- 
ing it  when  under  the  influence  of  disease.  This  sep- 
arates and  analyzes  what  seemed  to  be  inseparable,  and 
associates  by  a  common  bond  things  supposed  to  have 
no  necessary  connection.  It  shows  us,  as  nothing  else 
can,  the  true  limits  and  distinctions  between  one  power 
and  another,  and  gives  us  the  clew  to  the  secret  of 
their  harmonious  action.  The  brain,  though  not  itself 
the  mind,  is  the  organ  of  the  mind,  the  material  instru- 
ment whereby  its  operations  are  conducted ;  and  it  is 
only  by  the  study  of  its  organic  conditions,  both  in 
health  and  disease,  that  we  can  expect  to  obtain  any 
insight  into  the  processes  that  result  from  the  mysterious 
union  of  mind  and  body.  To  learn  how  we  think  and 
how  we  feel ;  to  understand,  in  any  degree,  the  won- 
drous mechanism  by  which  the  mental  manifestations 
are  accomplished,  we  must  study  its  morbid  aberrations 
from  the  line  of  healthy  action,  as  exhibited  in  the  wards 
of  the  hospital.  There,  in  the  ravings  of  the  excited 
maniac,  in  the  gross  delusions  of  the  monomaniac,  in 
the  mischief  and  malice  of  the  morally  insane,  in  the 
gloom  and  despair  of  the  melancholic,  in  the  dual  life  of 
the  subject  of  circular  insanity,  we  have  the  materials, 
in  part,  wherewith  to  construct  a  true  psychology.  Any 
mental  philosophy  in  which  this  source  of  information  is 
ignored  must  needs  be  imperfect ;  but  this  fact  could 
not  be  perceived  by  the  metaphysicians,  with  whom  it 
was  a  cardinal  principle  that,  for  the  successful  study 
of  the  mental  phenomena,  one  has  all  the  necessary 
materials  within  himself.     Better  views  on  this  point 


ADDRESS   AT   DANVILLE.  15 

are  beginning  to  prevail.  "  He  who  raises  moral  pathol- 
ogy to  a  science/'  says  one  of  the  prominent  thinkers 
of  our  day,  "  expanding,  systematizing,  and  applying 
many  fragmentary  observations  that  have  been  already 
made,  will  probably  take  a  place  among  the  master  intel- 
lects of  mankind."  x  No  one  who  has  carefully  followed 
the  course  of  psychological  inquiry  during  the  last 
twenty  or  thirty  years  can  have  failed  to  observe  abun- 
dant ground  for  this  opinion.  In  the  writings  of 
Spencer,  Bain,  Morell,  Lewes,  and  others,  hardly  ex- 
cepting Comte,  we  may  easily  trace  the  influence 
exerted  by  that  study  of  morbid  psychology,  which  has 
been  stimulated  by  the  abundant  opportunities  of  obser- 
vation afforded  by  the  numerous  hospitals  for  the  insane. 
Is  it  too  much  to  say  that  if  those  writers  have  struck 
upon  the  true  path  to  successful  inquiry,  and  inspired 
the  world  with  new  faith  in  metaphysics,  it  must  be 
attributed  in  some  degree  to  that  influence  ? 

That  the  laws  involving  questions  of  insanity,  and 
especially  the  common  law,  have  reflected  the  same 
influence,  is  admitted  by  all  who  are  conversant  with  the 
subject.  It  is  little  more  than  fifty  years  ago,  when 
the  law  regarded  no  one  as  really  insane  who  was  not 
raving.  Or,  if  the  disease  was  recognized  in  its  less 
obtrusive  forms,  it  was  considered  as  merely  a  disturb- 
ing influence  which  the  patient  was  bound  to  control  by 
means  of  the  sanity  that  yet  remained.  Insane  persons 
were  made  to  suffer  the  extreme  penalty  of  the  law,  if 
they  knew  the  criminal  act  was  wrong  or  illegal,  or 
displayed  design  and  contrivance ;  and  especially  was 
the  idea  of  insanity  scouted,  if  the  act  seemed  to  be  the 
result  of  provocation,  or  any  other  rational  motive. 
Within  our  time,  persons  have  been  executed  who  pro- 

1  Lecky,  W.  E.  K.,  History  of  European  Morals,  i.  167. 


16  ADDRESS   AT   DANVILLE. 

claimed  from  the  gibbet  delusions  as  monstrous  as  any 
that  may  be  heard  within  the  walls  of  any  hospital  in 
the  land  ;  and  others  have  been  discharged  from  confine- 
ment, by  due  course  of  law,  simply  because  they  could 
utter  a  few  coherent  sentences,  and  maintain  for  a  few 
minutes  a  calm  and  rational  demeanor.  Such  things 
are  seldom  seen  now,  thanks  to  the  better  knowledge 
and  better  influences  diffused  by  hospitals  for  the 
insane ;  and  if  they  are  to  disappear  entirely,  it  will  be 
owing  in  great  part,  no  doubt,  to  the  same  agency. 

Let  me  also  say  that  the  moral  pathology  to  be  learned 
in  these  establishments  will  have  an  important  bearing 
on  some  of  the  prominent  questions  of  moral  and  social 
science.  If  we  are  ever  to  obtain  a  correct  theory  of 
human  conduct ;  to  discover,  in  any  degree,  the  secret 
springs  of  action,  or  to  penetrate  into  the  mysteries  of 
human  delinquency,  it  must  be  by  the  study  of  morbid 
psychology  in  that  broad  and  liberal  manner  which  is 
possible  only  amid  large  collections  of  the  insane.  No 
one  who  declines  to  receive  his  opinions  on  trust  can 
help  being  embarrassed  by  the  problems  presented  by 
many  an  historical  name,  or  those  revelations  of  charac- 
ter so  often  found  on  the  records  of  our  courts.  We 
seek  in  vain  for  any  light  on  the  questions  thus  raised, 
and  are  obliged  to  rest  helplessly  in  the  conviction  that 
there  are  more  things  in  heaven  and  earth  than  are 
"clreamt  of  in  our  philosophies.  Indeed  these  difficulties 
cannot  be  overcome  by  any  theories  of  human  conduct 
which  suppose  the  mind  to  be  in  a  perfectly  normal 
condition.  They  point  to  imperfection,  or  deficiency, 
or  obliquity,  —  the  result  of  organic  influences,  —  and 
they  can  be  cleared  up  in  no  degree  except  by  the 
profound  study  of  organic  conditions  in  connection  with 
abnormal  mental  phenomena.     From  this  kind  of  study 


ADDRESS   AT   DANVILLE.  17 

we  may  justly  expect  that  a  light  will  be  thrown  on  the 
field  of  history  and  biography,  by  which  many  of  their 
pages  will  be  read  with  sentiments  very  different  from 
those  which  they  now  inspire.  It  would  show  us,  prob- 
ably, that  much  of  what  the  world  calls  genius  is  the 
result  of  a  morbid  organic  activity ;  that  many  a  saint, 
or  hero,  or  martyr,  became  such,  more  by  virtue  of  a 
peculiar  temperament  than  of  a  profound  sense  of  moral 
or  religious  obligation  ;  that  the  horrible  crimes  which 
have  imparted  an  infamous  distinction  to  the  Tiberiuses 
and  Caligulas  of  history  proceeded  rather  from  cerebral 
disorder  than  a  native  thirst  for  blood.  But  we  must 
leave  these  speculations,  and  resume  our  record  of 
events. 

The  benevolent  movement  already  alluded  to  was  not 
long  in  reaching  Pennsylvania.  In  1838,  the  project 
was  agitated  of  establishing  a  State  hospital  for  the 
insane ;  but  though  an  act  for  this  purpose  passed  the 
General  Assembly,  yet,  owing  to  the  financial  embarrass- 
ments of  the  time,  it  was  never  carried  into  effect.  In 
1845,  another  attempt  was  made,  fortified  by  one  of 
Miss  Dix's  characteristic  memorials  respecting  the 
lamentable  condition  of  the  insane  in  the  various  jails 
and  poor-houses  of  the  State.  The  attempt  succeeded  j 
and  again  the  requisite  act  was  passed,  which,  after 
slumbering  awhile  on  the  statute  book,  was  revived, 
the  building  was  erected  at  Harrisburg,  and  in  1851 
was  opened  for  the  reception  of  patients. 

In  the  mean  time,  some  benevolent  persons,  strongly 
impressed  by  the  wants  of  the  western  part  of  the 
State,  undertook  to  establish  a  hospital  for  diseases, 
both  bodily  and  mental.  In  this  effort  they  were  emi- 
nently successful ;  and  after  a  few  years,  with  liberal  aid 

2 


18  ADDEESS   AT   DANVILLE. 

from  the  State,  they  established  a  hospital  exclusively 
for  the  insane,  at  Dixmont. 

To  one  not  particularly  acquainted  with  the  subject, 
it  might  have  seemed  that  ample  provision  had  thus 
been  made  for  the  insane  of  the  State.  But,  in  truth, 
there  has  never  been  a  time  when  the  provision  was 
commensurate  with  their  number,  and  with  every  suc- 
ceeding year  the  deficiency  has  been  steadily  increasing. 
To  contend  that  the  public  duty  was  fully  discharged, 
when  a  certain  number  of  buildings  had  been  raised,  and 
a  certain  amount  of  money  expended,  is  simply  to  ignore 
the  principle  on  which  that  duty  is  founded.  If  the 
helpless  insane  are  the  wards  of  the  State,  then  each 
and  all  of  them  are  equally  entitled  to  its  care  and  pro- 
tection. To  extend  them  to  one,  and  refuse  them  to 
another ;  to  render  it  almost  impossible  for  the  distant 
counties  to  avail  themselves  of  the  benefits  of  the  hos- 
pital, is  to  act  the  part  of  an  unnatural  guardian.  And 
yet  that  is  precisely  what  has  been  done.  At  this  mo- 
ment, there  are  hundreds  suffering  every  variety  of 
hardship,  who  are  as  clearly  entitled  to  the  privileges 
of  a  hospital  as  any  of  those  wTho  have  been  actually 
received  within  their  walls.  But  the  utmost  capacity 
of  these  institutions  has  long  since  been  reached,  or, 
more  truly  speaking,  stretched  to  a  point  quite  incom- 
patible with  the  highest  measure  of  success.  It  is  so 
common  to  crowd  hospitals  beyond  their  proper  capa- 
city, that  the  public  is  not  aware,  I  fear,  what  this  fact 
implies.  When  a  hospital  intended  for  two  hundred 
patients  is  made  to  receive  three  hundred,  they  excite 
and  disturb  one  another ;  dangerous,  even  murderous, 
collisions,  fearful  to  think  of,  become  unavoidable  ;  the 
means  of  ventilation  are  deficient,  and  consequently  the 
air  of  the  house  is  loaded  with  effluvia  calculated  to  pro- 


ADDRESS   AT   DAXYILLE.  19 

duce  disease  ;  the  officers,  who  need  the  utmost  strength 
and  serenity  of  mind  in  performing  their  allotted  work, 
are  constantly  filled  with  apprehension  ;  and  the  result 
of  it  all  is  that  the  hospital  fails  to  accomplish  that  de- 
gree of  comfort  and  restoration  which  it  otherwise  would. 
Let  it  be  distinctly  understood,  therefore,  that  to  place 
a  patient  in  a  hospital  already  full  is  to  inflict  a  positive 
injury  on  many,  for  the  doubtful  chance  of  benefiting 
one. 

What,  then,  is  the  extent  of  our  hospital  capacity, 
and  what  relation  does  it  bear  to  the  amount  of  insanity 
among  us?  An  answer  to  these  questions  will  show 
how  far  we  have  discharged  our  duty  to  the  insane. 

The  statistics  of  insanity  as  usually  presented  are 
deplorably  deficient  in  that  scientific  accuracy  which 
alone  can  make  them  of  much  worth,  and  those  which 
profess  to  give  the  actual  number  of  the  insane  in  the 
community  are  especially  unreliable.  One  memorable 
exception  to  this  last  statement  was  made  in  1855  by 
the  State  of  Massachusetts,  which,  for  the  purpose  of 
obtaining  various  kinds  of  information  respecting  the 
insane  within  her  own  borders,  appointed  a  commission, 
of  which  the  working  member  was  Dr.  Jarvis.  Probably 
no  statistics  on  this  subject  were  ever  collected,  so  free 
from  error  or  inaccuracy  as  these  ;  and,  for  the  first  time 
in  the  world,  the  actual  number  of  the  insane  was  given 
with  a  very  near  approach  to  the  exact  truth.  It  ap- 
peared that  in  that  Commonwealth  the  insane,  not  in- 
cluding born  idiots  or  imbeciles,  amounted  to  one  in 
four  hundred  and  twenty-seven  of  the  whole  population. 
There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  the  proportion  is 
much  if  any  less,  in  this  State ;  but,  to  prevent  all  risk 
of  overstatement,  let  us  estimate  it  at  one  in  six  hun- 
dred.    Supposing  the  population  to  be  3,500,000,  the 


20  ADDEESS   AT   DANVILLE. 

number  of  the  insane  will  be  5,833.  One-third  of  these 
may  not  need,  or  may  be  supposed  not  to  need,  hospital 
treatment.  Deducting  these,  we  have  3,889  for  whom 
some  hospital  provision  is  required,  either  for  purpose 
of  custody  or  cure.  At  this  present  moment,  the  num- 
ber of  patients  in  all  our  special  hospitals  and  asylums 
is  about  1,700,  so  that  there  still  remain  2,189  who  are 
without  the  only  suitable  care  and  treatment. 

The  need  of  more  hospitals  has  been  strongly  felt  for 
years,  but  the  Legislature  was  too  well  satisfied  with 
what  it  had  done  in  this  direction,  to  be  very  anxious  to 
do  more.  At  length  the  "  Medical  Society  of  the  State 
of  Pennsylvania,"  at  its  annual  meeting  in  1867,  ap- 
pointed a  committee  to  prepare  a  Memorial  to  the  Gen- 
eral Assembly  on  this  subject,  as  they  did  at  its  next 
session  in  1868.  In  this  document  they  set  forth  the 
fact,  as  already  stated,  that  the  number  of  the  insane  is 
greatly  in  excess  of  the  capacity  of  our  hospitals ;  that 
a  large  proportion  of  these  persons  are  kept  under  con- 
ditions shocking  to  the  dullest  sense  of  propriety,  or 
even  of  common  humanity,  suffering  from  cold  or  heat, 
from  bad  air,  and  indecent  exposure,  chained  to  the 
floor,  perhaps,  deprived  of  every  means  of  recreation  or 
employment,  and  dying  by  that  process  of  decay  which 
physicians  call  dementia;  that  the  State  is  annually 
burdened  with  the  life-long  support  of  persons,  who, 
if  subjected  to  early  hospital  treatment,  might  have 
been  restored  to  society ;  and  that,  in  the  long  run,  the 
expense  of  such  treatment  would  be  far  less  than  that 
of  supporting  the  chronic  insane  as  they  now  are  sup- 
ported. The  Memorial  concluded  by  urging  the  estab- 
lishment, without  delay,  of  a  hospital  for  the  district 
composed  of  the  counties  of  Wayne,  Susquehanna,  Wy- 
oming, Luzerne,  Columbia,  Montour,  Sullivan,  Bradford, 


ADDRESS   AT   DAXVDLLE.  21 

Lycoming,  Tioga,  Clinton,  Centre,  Clearfield,  Elk,  Cam- 
eron, M'Kean,  Potter,  and  Forest  ;  and  also,  if  the  finan- 
ces of  the  State  will  justify  it,  one  for  the  district 
composed  of  the  counties  of  Berks,  Bucks,  Carbon, 
Lehigh,  Monroe,  Montgomery,  Northampton,  Pike,  and 
Schuylkill. 

To  the  credit  of  the  General  Assembly  of  1868,  the 
appeal  was  heeded,  and  an  act  was  passed  providing  for 
a  hospital  for  the  insane  within  the  district  specified  by 
the  Committee  of  the  State  Medical  Society.  The  act 
also  provided  for  a  committee,  composed  of  Dr.  Curwen, 
Superintendent  of  the  State  hospital  at  Harrisburg,  Dr. 
Reed,  Superintendent  of  the  Western  Hospital  for  the 
Insane,  and  Dr.  Traill  Green,  Professor  of  Chemistry  in 
Lafayette  College,  to  obtain  a  location,  and  proceed  to 
the  erection  of  the  building.  This  committee,  aided  by 
the  advice  of  several  other  persons  who  accompanied 
them,  inspected  various  places,  and  decided  upon  this  as 
the  most  eligible  of  all  those  brought  to  their  notice. 
Here,  then,  is  to  stand  the  new  structure  to  be  devoted 
to  the  care  of  a  helpless  class  of  our  fellow-men.  On 
this  spot,  in  the  midst  of  a  beautiful  landscape,  with  its 
clumps  of  noble  trees,  and  its  fair  meadows  stretching 
by  gentle  slopes  to  the  waters  of  the  Susquehanna, 
within  sight  of  the  dwellings  and  workshops  and 
churches  of  a  busy  population,  will  be  our  Bethesda 
pool,  whose  healing  virtues  shall  be  felt  by  thousands 
yet  unborn. 

In  conclusion,  allow  me  to  address  you,  in  all  frankness 
and  sincerity,  touching  your  own  duties  towards  the 
new  institution  about  to  be  established  among  you. 
What  these  duties  are,  you  will  readily  perceive  by 
understanding  the  relations  that  necessarily  arise  be- 
tween you  and  it.     Its  immediate  benefits  will  be  ex- 


22  ADDRESS   AT   DANVILLE. 

perienced  by  the  people  of  this  particular  region,  and 
they,  therefore,  are  deeply  concerned  in  the  results  of 
its  operations.  From  the  sad  disorder  which  is  to  be 
treated  within  these  walls,  no  one  has  any  privilege  of 
exemption.  No  accident  of  fortune  or  birth,  no  measure 
of  strength,  no  exercise  of  prudence,  may  be  able  to 
save  you  from  the  fate  of  others  once  as  little  likely  to 
meet  it  as  you.  Or,  if  you  escape  personally,  the  stroke 
may  fall  on  child,  parent,  or  neighbor,  with  far  more 
sorrow  than  if  it  fell  on  yourself.  You,  therefore,  are 
deeply  interested  in  having  it  perform  its  allotted  ser- 
vice successfully,  and  are  bound,  as  far  as  in  you  lies, 
to  promote  this  end.  The  Executive  will  appoint  its 
trustees,  who  will  have  the  general  direction  of  its 
affairs ;  and  their  names,  I  doubt  not,  will  always  be  a 
sufficient  guaranty  for  the  faithful  performance  of  their 
trust.  The  officers,  who  are  to  direct  the  remedial 
measures,  and  superintend  its  daily  working,  will  be 
equally  worthy,  I  trust,  of  their  charge.  But  the  com- 
fort of  the  inmates,  the  place  it  is  to  hold  in  the  regards 
of  the  community,  may  be  determined  in  no  small  degree 
by  you.  Within  your  respective  spheres  of  duty  and 
of  influence,  many  of  you  may  materially  aid  the  work 
which  is  here  to  be  performed.  While  the  State  will 
provide  the  necessary  means  of  living,  there  are  many 
things  capable  of  promoting  the  comfort  and  gratifica- 
tion of  the  inmates,  for  which  it  must  be  indebted  to 
private  benevolence.  To  take  from  it,  as  much  as  pos- 
sible, the  prison-like  aspect  inseparable  from  such  struct- 
ures, and  give  it  the  amenities  of  a  private  residence, 
it  will  need  objects  pleasing  to  the  eye,  and  calculated 
to  draw  the  mind  from  depressing  reflections.  The  time 
is  coming,  I  hope,  when  the  State  will  regard  these  things 
as  no  less  legitimate  appliances  in  accomplishing  the  end 


ADDRESS    AT   DANVILLE.  23 

in  view,  than  those  strictly  material  ones  of  food  and 
lodging.  Until  it  comes,  however,  the  institution  will 
have  to  depend,  for  aids  like  those,  on  private  bounty. 
Many  of  you  may  be  able,  without  inconvenience,  to 
give  it  occasionally,  a  book,  or  a  picture,  or  a  plant,  or 
something  else  equally  calculated  to  diffuse  a  little  sun- 
shine through  halls  that  will  need  all  that  they  can 
obtain.  I  know  no  other  way  of  accomplishing  so  much 
good  at  such  little  cost,  for  it  must  be  considered  that 
the  benefit  of  such  things  is  not  transient  and  confined 
to  a  few,  but  will  continue,  year  after  year,  to  soothe 
and  cheer  hundreds  of  successive  comers. 

In  another  way  you  may  afford  it  material  aid.  Like 
every  other  human  enterprise,  it  will  encounter  trials 
and  difficulties.  Accidents  may  disturb  the  even  tenor 
of  its  way,  servants  may  prove  unfaithful,  unforeseen 
circumstances  may  defeat  its  wisest  plans.  In  all  such 
shortcomings,  many  people  are  swift  to  censure,  and  not 
unwilling  to  rouse  the  prejudices  of  the  ignorant  and 
ill-natured.  Let  it  be  your  duty  to  examine  before  you 
decide  ;  and,  to  do  that  properly,  qualify  yourselves,  as 
you  easily  may,  to  distinguish  between  the  accidental 
and  unavoidable,  on  the  one  hand,  and  carelessness  or 
intentional  wrong,  on  the  other.  In  this  way  you  will 
often  ascertain  that  what  is  put  forth  as  unquestionable 
abuse,  or  indicative  of  culpable  remissness,  is  merely 
the  result  of  that  imperfection  which  attends  every  thing 
human,  and  that  many  a  tale  of  wrong-doing,  when 
stripped  of  all  exaggeration  and  false  coloring,  will  be 
reduced  to  very  harmless  proportions.  The  institution 
asks  for  fair,  dispassionate,  intelligent  judgment,  and 
this  it  has  a  right  to  expect,  at  all  times,  and  under  all 
circumstances.  Firmly  relying  on  your  candor  and 
intelligence,  on  the  wishes  and  prayers  of  every  friend 


24  ADDRESS   AT   DANVILLE. 

of  the  cause,  and  on  the  smiles  of  an  ever-gracious 
Providence,  I  have  the  faith  to  believe  that  the  enter- 
prise inaugurated  here  this  day  will  ever  prove  a 
matter  of  just  pride  to  this  community,  an  honor  to 
the  Commonwealth,  and  an  incalculable  blessing  to  hu- 
manity. 


THE     CAUSES     OF    INSANITY. 


[In  the  following  observations  on  the  Causes  of  Insanity,  it  was 
my  object  to  show,  not  only  that  the  prevailing  notions  respecting  the 
production  of  the  disease  are  exceedingly  narrow  and  imperfect,  but 
that  they  entirely  ignore  the  most  potent  agencies  concerned  in  the  pro- 
cess. As  long  as  such  notions  constitute  our  whole  philosophy  of  the 
subject,  attention  will  be  fixed  on  accidental  and  subordinate  points, 
while  essential  and  indispensable  conditions  will  be  little  understood 
or  cared  for.  Why  one  person  becomes  insane,  and  another  does 
not,  both  being  exposed  to  the  action  of  the  same  cause  which  was 
thought  to  be  disastrous  to  one  of  them,  would  seem  to  be  one  of  the 
first  questions  for  the  inquirer  to  answer,  especially  as  it  is  suggested 
by  all  the  analogies  of  bodily  disease.  It  is  not  supposed  that  high 
living  will  produce  gout  in  everybody  who  freely  indulges  his  appetite  ; 
that  cold  will  give  rise  to  rheumatism  in  all  who  expose  themselves  to 
its  rigors ;  or  that  every  full-blooded,  short-necked  individual  will 
inevitably  die  of  apoplexy.  It  is  hard  to  conceive  how  the  absurdity 
of  attributing  an  attack  of  insanity  to  incidents  perfectly  innocuous  to 
almost  everybody  else,  or  of  believing  that  a  host  of  agencies  as 
diverse  in  their  nature  and  mode  of  operation  as  can  well  be  con- 
ceived of  should  agree  in  accomplishing  the  same  result,  should  have 
so  completely  escaped  notice.  It  shows  how  superficial  our  study  of 
insanity  has  been,  notwithstanding  it  meets  us  in  so  many  relations 
of  the  highest  importance  both  to  the  parties  immediately  concerned 
and  to  society  at  large.  Inasmuch  as  it  is,  of  all  diseases,  that  in 
regard  to  which  the  right  of  private  judgment  is  claimed  with  the 
strongest  confidence,  it  ought  to  be,  preeminently,  the  best  known 
and  understood  by  all  who  have  any  knowledge  at  all.  It  must  be 
admitted,  however,  that  until  very  recently  the  vulgar  conceptions  of 


26  THE   CAUSES   OF   INSANITY. 

insanity  could  not  be  corrected  by  any  worthier  knowledge  on  the 
part  of  those  who  professed  to  be  especially  acquainted  with  its  phe- 
nomena. They  were  more  disposed  to  speculate  than  to  observe,  and 
were  not  entirely  devoid  of  prejudice  and  error. 

Of  late  years  the  predominant  error  in  the  current  views  respecting 
insanity  has  consisted  in  the  neglect  of  some  important  organic  qual- 
ities of  the  brain.  That  its  action  could  be  deranged  by  those  lesions 
designated  as  inflammation,  congestion,  softening,  oedema,  extravasa- 
tion, and  the  like,  was  a  fact  always  well  understood,  but  any  other 
conditions  competent  to  induce  a  deviation  from  the  line  of  sound, 
healthy  activity,  were  scarcely  suspected.  In  contemplating  any  in- 
strument or  machine  of  human  invention,  our  attention  is  fixed  not 
only  by  the  nice  adaptation  of  one  part  to  another,  and  the  admirable 
result  thus  obtained,  but  also  by  the  flexibility  of  the  materials  used 
in  the  construction,  their  fitness  for  resisting  noxious  influences,  and 
their  power  of  endurance.  And  we  are  well  aware  that,  generally 
speaking,  it  is  on  one  or  all  of  these  qualities  that  the  practical  value  of 
the  machine  will  depend.  No  matter  how  ingenious  the  contrivance,  or 
how  perfectly  the  work  is  performed,  if  it  is  defective  in  any  of  these 
essential  requisites,  — if  it  is  corroded  by  the  very  things  it  deals  with, 
or  speedily  breaks  down  by  means  of  its  own  friction, — then  it  is  a 
failure.  For  ages  the  structure  of  the  brain  has  received  extraordi- 
nary attention,  and  its  operations  as  the  minister  of  the  mind  have  been 
studied  more  profoundly  than  those  of  any  other  organ;  and  yet  it 
never  was  supposed  that  its  value  as  a  working  apparatus  depends, 
in  any  measure,  on  the  quality  of  the  materials  used  in  its  construc- 
tion. While  men  recognized  the  influence  of  disease  and  other  deteri- 
orating agencies  in  depriving  other  parts  of  their  normal  vigor  and 
capacity,  this,  the  most  delicate  of  them  all,  engaged  in  the  most 
subtle  and  complicated  processes,  was  practically  considered  as  be- 
yond their  reach.  It  was  supposed  to  be  as  sound,  as  vigorous,  as 
well  fitted  for  its  work,  in  one  generation  as  another,  unscathed  by 
any  of  those  noxious  agencies  that  have  ever  been  checking  the  nor- 
mal development  of  the  human  faculties.  Inherited  tubercle,  from 
its  chosen  seat  in  the  lungs,  might  at  any  moment  spring  into  fatal 
activity ;  scrofula  might  so  vitiate  the  humors  as  to  spread  debility 
over  the  whole  system  ;  gout  and  rheumatism  might  render  the  muscles 
and  fibrous  tissues  of  father  and  child,  in  long  succession,  sources 
of  exquisite  pain ;  but  the  brain  alone  continued,  generation  after 
generation,  to  retain  its  pristine  vigor  under  the  vices  and  errors  of 
civilization. 


THE    CAUSES    OF    INSANITY.  27 

\ 
The  researches  of  Gall  and  Spurzheim  first  led  to  more  philosophi- 
cal views  respecting  the  constitution  of  the  brain  ;  for  although  their 
system  has  failed  to  obtain  any  considerable  belief,  yet  their  particu- 
lar proposition,  marking  a  long  stride  in  the  progress  of  knowledge,  — 
that  size  is  a  measure  of  power,  —  will  scarcely  be  disputed  now. 
The  next  step,  of  little  less  importance,  was  made  by  their  followers, 
in  explaining  the  apparent  exceptions  to  the  rule,  by  supposing  a 
diversity  of  quality  in  the  materials  of  which  the  brain  is  composed. 
At  a  later  period,  the  deteriorating  influences  of  vicious  or  unhealthy 
habits  and  usages  were  made  the  subject  of  an  admirable  work  by 
Morel,  while  the  effect  of  nervous  disorders  on  the  cerebral  organism 
was  investigated  by  Moreau  de  Tours  with  remarkable  acuteness. 
The  result  of  these  and  other  kindred  inquiries  was  to  establish 
beyond  a  reasonable  doubt  the  principle,  that  the  brain  comes  into 
the  world  with  the  same  imperfections  and  deficiencies,  the  same  irre- 
si>tible  tendencies  to  disease  or  perversity  of  action,  which  have  long 
been  observed  in  regard  to  other  organs.  Thus  was  opened  a  new 
realm  of  inquiry,  of  unprecedented  interest  to  the  student  of  patho- 
logical psychology,  and  of  immense  importance  in  many  practical  rela- 
tions of  life.  We  have  as  yet  but  a  faint  idea  of  its  full  significance, 
but  it  needs  no  great  faith  to  believe  that  it  is  destined  to  modify  very 
much  our  present  theories  of  human  action,  and  throw  new  light  on 
many  a  dark  problem  of  human  conduct. 

While  physicians  and  philosophers  have  always  admitted,  in  gen- 
eral terms,  the  damaging  effect  of  cerebral  lesions  on  the  mental 
powers,  they  have  been  far  from  being  agreed  as  to  its  nature  and 
extent.  The  only  particular  on  which  they  have  manifested  some- 
thing like  an  approach  to  unanimity  of  opinion  is  that  of  reducing 
the  impairment  of  moral  liberty  thus  produced  to  its  narrowest 
limits.  Governed  merely  by  casual  appearances,  and  strongly  im- 
pressed by  that  show  of  reasoning  power  very  common  with  the  insane, 
they  shrink  from  a  truth  which  is  the  result  of  special  investigation, 
but  none  the  less  certain  and  worthy  of  acceptation  because  completely 
beyond  their  range.  Within  a  few  years  better  notions  have  made 
their  appearance  among  them  ;  but  the  recent  investigations,  fruitful 
as  they  were,  have  added  new  difficulties  to  a  subject  already  regarded 
with  much  diversity  of  opinion.  If  overt  disease,  manifested  frT 
appreciable  symptoms  during  life  and  various  lesions  after  death,  can 
annul  responsibility,  the  question  inevitably  follows,  whether  that 
cerebral  condition,  — neither  of  health  nor  of  disease,  as  those  terms 
are  usually  understood,  —  which  is  produced  by  tendencies  to  disease 


28  THE   CAUSES    OF   INSANITY. 

or  ancestral  vices,  may  not  impair  it,  in  some  degree,  under  some 
circumstances  ?  This  is  the  question  of  questions  presented  to  the 
psychologists  of  our  times,  and  destined,  undoubtedly,  to  raise  sharper 
conflicts  than  any  other  in  the  whole  range  of  medical  jurisprudence. 
It  is  involved  in  obscurity,  it  is  met  by  the  bitter  prejudices  of  those 
who  lead  popular  opinion,  and  extensive  investigations  and  various 
knowledge  are  needed  for  its  solution.  Townley's  case  is  but  one  of 
an  immense  class,  and  well  illustrates  what  we  are  to  expect  here- 
after. The  following  pages  will  give  the  reader  some  idea  of  the 
general  course  of  inquiry,  and  the  character  of  the  particular  questions 
involved.] 

Nothing  connected  with  insanity  excites,  more  popu- 
lar interest  than  its  causes ;  partly  owing,  perhaps,  to 
the  idea  that  to  learn  the  cause  is  the  first  step  towards 
its  cure,  but  chiefly,  no  doubt,  to  an  instinctive  curiosity 
to  know  the  why  and  wherefore  of  a  strange  and  mo- 
mentous event.  With  equal  zeal,  if  not  more  discretion, 
the  philosopher  and  the  physician  have  speculated  on  the 
subject ;  and  if  an  imposing  array  of  figures  and  adverse 
incidents,  embracing  almost  every  human  ill,  from  a 
blow  on  the  head  to  a  disappointment  in  love,  were 
always  equivalent  to  true  knowledge,  we  might  fancy 
that  we  have  little  to  learn  respecting  the  causes  of 
insanity.  When  we  ponder,  however,  the  meaning  of 
certain  current  words  and  phrases,  and  consider  the 
vague  and  indefinite  ideas  which  they  convey,  we  shall 
be  inclined  to  suspect,  even  without  any  profound 
acquaintance  with  the  mental  movements  connected 
with  disease,  that  we  have  been  mistaking  words  for 
ideas, —  grasping  at  a  substance  and  finding  only  a 
shadow.  The  practical  importance  of  the  subject  re- 
quires that  it  should  be  rightly  understood,  and  this 
induces  me  to  enter  upon  a  discussion  which  might 
seem,  at  first  sight,  more  appropriate  in  a  professional 
treatise. 


THE    CAUSES    OF   INSANITY.  29 

Our  first  mistake  consists  of  a  vulgar  misconception 
respecting  the  relations  of  cause  and  effect,  which  is  Dot 
confined  to  the  ignorant  and  unthinking.  We  see  it  in 
the  common  fallacy  which  supposes  that  a  specific, 
prominent,  well-defined  event  must  necessarily  be  pre- 
ceded by  some  other  event  equally  specific  and  promi- 
nent. This  error  is  the  more  easily  committed,  because 
the  imagination  is  always  pleased  by  discovering  an 
agency  whose  properties  seem  to  render  it  abundantly 
sufficient  for  the  purpose.  The  mind  rests  upon  it 
with  a  certain  satisfaction,  as  if  it  had  arrived  at  a  sure 
and  reliable  result.  I  scarcely  need  to  say  how  little 
support  is  afforded  for  this  notion  by  the  plainest  rules 
of  philosophical  inquiry.  Very  often,  an  event  that 
strongly  appeals  to  the  senses,  and  violently  disturbs 
the  present  relations  of  things,  may  have  been  prepared 
by  a  series  of  agencies  so  slight  and  obscure  as  to  be 
discovered  only  by  the  most  keen  and  penetrating  re- 
search. They  seem  to  be  slight,  simply  because,  with 
our  limited  vision,  we  are  unable  to  discern  the  whole 
field  of  their  operations,  or  measure  the  results  of  their 
mutual  dependence.  Indeed,  there  can  be  no  surer  way 
of  mistaking  the  real  cause  of  a  signal  event  than  to 
suppose  that  it  lies  upon  the  surface,  ready  to  be  dis- 
covered without  skilful  and  laborious  research. 

We  see  the  same  misconception  in  the  common  dis- 
position to  consider  the  relation  of  cause  and  effect  to 
be  determined  by  proximity  of  occurrence,  or  some 
other  casual  circumstance,  ignoring  all  distinctions  be- 
tween the  necessary  and  the  accidental  j  and  thus  we 
are  ever  in  danger  of  repeating  the  process  of  the 
untutored  mind,  by  mistaking,  in  our  way,  Tenterden 
steeple  for  the  cause  of  Goodwin  sands.  Indeed,  it  can 
hardly  be  denied,  that,  on  this  subject,  such  mistakes 


30  THE   CAUSES    OF   INSANITY. 

have  been  the  rule  rather  than  the  exception,  both  with 
the  wise  and  the  simple.  When  an  attack  of  insanity 
takes  place,  and  we  look  among  the  occurrences  of  the 
past  life  for  the  cause  of  so  singular  a  phenomenon,  we 
seize  on  the  most  prominent  or  peculiar,  and  easily 
persuade  ourselves  that  we  have  found  the  object  of  our 
search.  It  may  be  a  singular,  a  remarkable,  an  extraor- 
dinary event,  and  yet  the  proof  of  necessary  connection 
be  utterly  wanting.  That  proof  seldom  can  be  obtained 
without  an  exhaustive  investigation  of  that  and  many 
other  occurrences  in  the  life  of  the  patient,  —  the  inner 
as  well  as  the  outer  life,  —  and  not  always,  by  any  means, 
then.  No  partial  or  superficial  investigation  can  lead  to 
a  reliable  conclusion.  So  long  as  a  single  incident  re- 
mains untouched,  we  have  no  right  to  pronounce  on  the 
sufficiency  of  any  other.  But  who  is  willing  to  take  the 
necessary  pains?  Who  is  adequate  to  such  a  nice  and 
complicated  inquiry  ?  How  are  its  materials  to  be 
obtained  ? 

Admitting  that  the  antecedents  are  thoroughly  un. 
derstood,  if  that  were  possible,  it  would  be  quite  beyond 
our  power  to  measure  the  amount  of  agency  exerted 
by  one  and  another  in  the  production  of  the  disease. 
The  great  misfortune,  the  terrible  affliction,  the  stunning 
blow,  may  have  had  less  to  do  with  the  final  result,  than 
some  trouble  concealed  from  the  common  gaze,  deep 
in  the  inmost  recesses  of  the  inner  life.  On  conversing 
with  those  who  have  recovered  from  an  attack,  respect- 
ing the  incidents  which  led  to  it,  I  have  found,  oftener 
than  otherwise,  that  they  laid  far  less  stress  on  the 
prominent  event  which  had  been  fixed  upon  by  others 
as  the  source  of  the  evil,  than  on  something  so  slight, 
apparently,  as  to  have  escaped  the  notice  of  the  most 
intimate  friend.     In  my  observation  of  insanity,  nothing 


THE    CAUSES    OF   INSANITY.  31 

has  surprised  me  more  than  such  revelations  of  mental 
experience,  completely  upsetting,  as  they  did,  our  own 
elaborate  conclusions  respecting  the  cause  of  the  dis- 
ease. Not  that  the  revelations  of  those  who  have  been 
insane  are  always  reliable,  even  if  they  have  perfectly 
recovered,  for  the  very  disturbance  of  mind  must  neces- 
sarily prevent  them  from  reasoning  about  or  even  remem- 
bering correctly  their  mental  impressions  while  under 
the  influence  of  disease ;  yet,  after  all  due  allowance  is 
made,  their  conclusions  may  not  be  more  liable  to  error 
than  those  of  outside  observers.  But,  well  as  we  may 
understand  these  incidents  which  are  obvious  to  the 
senses,  we  can  seldom,  if  ever,  be  sure  that  the  morbific 
agency  has  been  exerted  by  them  rather  than  by  those 
mysterious  conditions  of  the  cerebral  organism  which 
are  indicative  of  imperfection  or  tendency  to  disease, 
and  derived,  in  the  process  of  generation,  from  imper- 
fections in  the  parent  or  ancestor. 

There  is  another  consideration  which  has  been  too 
much  disregarded,  in  this  search  for  the  causes  of  in- 
sanity. Even  they  who  are  not  so  dull  as  to  suppose 
that  the  relation  between  the  effect  and  the  alleged 
cause  is  merely  one  of  sequence,  often  fail  to  see  the  lack 
of  any  relation  between  the  character  of  the  supposed 
cause  and  the  constitution  of  the  brain,  —  the  properties 
of  its  tissues,  and  the  laws  of  morbid  activity.  It  is  not 
strange  that,  in  the  infancy  of  medical  science,  the 
mumbling  of  some  cabalistic  words  over  a  wound  was 
supposed  to  make  it  heal  speedily ;  or  that,  in  cases  of 
injury,  the  remedy  was  sometimes  applied  to  the  instru- 
ment by  which  it  was  effected.  It  is  strange,  however, 
that,  in  an  age  which  has  laid  down  the  strictest  rules 
of  philosophizing,  few  are  disturbed  by  seeing  events 
placed  together  in  the  relation  of  cause  and  effect,  hav- 


32  THE    CAUSES   OF   INSANITY. 

ing  as  little  mutual  adaptation  as  the  remedy  and  the  ill 
here  mentioned.  We  recognize  at  last  the  folly  of  be- 
lieving, as  our  ancestors  did,  that  the  insane  are  pos- 
sessed by  the  devil,  that  submersion  to  the  very  point 
of  drowning  is  a  sovereign  cure,  or  that  the  moon  has 
any  influence  on  the  movements  of  mental  disease,  sim- 
ply for  lack  of  this  relation;  but  we  fail  to  apply  the 
same  test  to  other  alleged  agencies  in  the  production 
of  insanity.  Although  it  may  not  always  be  incumbent 
on  us  to  demonstrate,  beyond  a  doubt,  this  kind  of 
adaptedness  between  the  alleged  cause  and  the  cerebral 
constitution,  yet,  at  the  very  least,  we  should  be  cautious 
how  we  offer  as  a  cause  of  insanity  an  incident  which 
all  actual  fact  and  all  analogies  forbid  us  to  believe  can, 
in  the  nature  of  things,  have  any  influence  upon  the 
vital  properties  of  the  brain.  Considered  in  this  light, 
many  of  those  incidents  which  figure  among  the  causes 
of  insanity  must  be  regarded  as  of  little  consequence, 
if  not  entirely  impotent.  Taking  up  the  first  hospital 
report  within  reach,  and  turning  to  the  table  of  causes, 
I  find  in  it  hard  work,  fear  of  poverty,  and  jealousy,  to 
mention  no  others.  The  habit  of  repeating,  one  after 
another,  certain  words  and  phrases,  is  apt  to  render  us 
insensible  to  the  errors  they  represent.  But  dropping, 
if  possible,  all  former  impressions,  and  looking  upon  the 
matter  afresh,  by  the  light  of  sure  and  unquestionable 
knowledge,  we  shall  scarcely  find  any  warrant,  I  think, 
for  believing  that  the  incidents  here  named  can,  in  the 
nature  of  things,  exert  a  morbific  effect  on  the  brain.  A 
poor  man  can  have  no  apprehension  of  poverty,  while, 
in  the  rich,  it  must  be  a  morbid  feeling,  of  course, — 
part  and  parcel  of  the  disease  of  which  it  is  alleged  to 
be  the  cause.  Jealousy,  in  process  of  time,  gradually 
increasing,  may  become  a  form  of  mental  disease ;  but 


THE   CAUSES    OF   INSANITY.  33 

to  call  it  the  cause  of  insanity  is  very  like  saying  that  it 
is  the  cause  of  itself.  Hard  work  may  produce  that 
exhaustion  of  the  vital  energies  which  favors  the  devel- 
opment of  insanity,  but  directly  it  cannot  injure  the 
brain.  The  occasion  forbids  me  to  multiply  instances 
of  this  kind,  but  these  are  enough  to  illustrate  my 
meaning. 

Again  occurs  a  difficulty  no  less  serious  than  the  last. 
In  the  series  of  antecedents  which  precede  an  attack  of 
insanity,  many  of  which  may  seem  to  be  connected  by 
a  bond  of  mutual  dependence,  by  w7hat  rule  of  selection 
are  we  led  to  pronounce  this  or  that  the  efficient 
cause,  —  the  causa  causans?  Within  w7hat  period  have 
we  a  right  to  look  for  the  noxious  agency  ?  Are  we 
to  be  confined  to  the  last  few  weeks?  or  months?  or 
years?  We  do  not  get  rid  of  the  difficulty  by  claiming 
for  our  purpose,  without  regard  to  time  or  any  other 
circumstance,  the  incident  or  event  which  seems  to  the 
mind  of  a  spectator  to  have  had  the  deepest  appreciable 
effect.  We  rather  substitute  for  it  one  still  greater. 
To  select  any  one  incident,  and  leave  out  of  the  account 
entirely  the  rest,  is  merely  to  express  an  opinion,  not 
to  establish  a  fact.  Such  a  proceeding  is  worthless,  of 
course,  as  a  matter  of  science.  It  can  satisfy  those  only 
who  are  dazzled  by  a  show  of  knowledge. 

If  driven  by  force  of  proof  to  admit  that  a  multi- 
plicity of  incidents  are  usually  concerned,  each  in  its 
particular  way,  in  producing  the  ultimate  result,  we  are 
thus  more  philosophical  in  our  investigation,  more  faith- 
ful to  the  truth  ;  but  what  then  becomes  of  our  Tables  ? 
Even  if,  by  any  device  of  columns  and  figures,  we  could 
still  preserve  the  tabular  form,  their  statistical  charac- 
ter would  be  utterly  gone.    To  enumerate  all  the  events 


34  THE   CAUSES   OF   INSANITY. 

which  precede  the  attack  is  to  give  a  history  of  the  case, 
not  to  assign  its  cause. 

One  source,  and  perhaps  the  principal,  of  the  preva- 
lent error,  is  the  habit  of  regarding  insanity  as  a  sharply 
defined  phenomenon,  easily  separated  from  all  accom- 
panying incidents,  like  an  earthquake  or  a  chemical 
action,  instead  of  a  condition  arising  from  obscure  be- 
ginnings, culminating  more  or  less  rapidly,  and  declin- 
ing by  imperceptible  steps  as  the  darkness  of  night  is 
succeeded  by  the  light  of  common  day.  Any  occur- 
rence which  can  be  properly  regarded  as  its  cause  must 
necessarily  precede  the  morbid  process.  But  the  diffi- 
culty is  to  ascertain  that  point  in  the  line  of  sequences 
which  marks  the  beginning  of  the  diseased  action,  so 
that  we  shall  be  in  no  danger  of  assigning,  as  a  cause, 
some  incident  of  the  morbid  process.  Of  course,  the 
difficulty  is  all  the  greater,  the  longer  the  duration  of 
the  initiatory  stage,  and  the  less  demonstrative  its  mani- 
festations. It  often  happens,  in  fact,  that  the  first  promi- 
nent event  having,  apparently,  any  connection  with  the 
disease,  is,  clearly,  not  the  cause,  but  an  incident  of  it ; 
while  all  before  it  is  too  vague,  too  obscure,  too  little 
known,  to  furnish  any  light  as  to  the  really  efficient 
agency  for  which  we  are  in  search.  To  avoid  mistake 
on  this  point  requires  a  knowledge  of  the  patient's  his- 
tory—  to  mention  no  other  requirement  —  too  minute 
and  thorough  to  be  often  obtained.  They  who  have 
been  immediately  around  him  are  seldom  capable  of 
observing  his  mental  movements  correctly,  for  to  do  that 
implies  the  highest  kind  of  culture,  and  they  may  have 
only  the  lowest;  and  yet  it  is  from  their  reports,  chiefly, 
that  the  physician  is  obliged  to  draw  his  conclusions 
respecting  the  cause.  How  little  reliance  can  be  placed 
on  this  source  of  information  daily  experience  teaches 


THE   CAUSES   OF   INSANITY.  35 

us,  even  when  we  have  to  deal  with  persons  considera- 
bly above  the  lowest  grades  of  mental  culture.  A  sin- 
gle leaf  from  that  experience  will  show  the  nature  of 
the  mistake  in  question,  and  the  ease  with  which  it  may 
be  made. 

Prominent  among  the  antecedents  of  a  case  is  drunk- 
enness, for  instance ;  and  an  incautious  observer  would 
straightway  pronounce  it  the  cause  of  the  attack.  That 
insanity  may  sometimes  be  fairly  attributed  to  drunken- 
ness, cannot  be  doubted  ;  but,  considering  the  nature  of 
maniacal  impulses,  and  the  abundant  opportunities  for 
gratifying  the  desire  for  drink,  there  is  reason  to 
suspect  that  the  vice  may  be  an  effect  rather  than  a 
cause ;  and  farther  inquiry  often  confirms  the  suspicion. 
Again,  a  person  is  found  to  have  avoided  society,  to 
have  shut  himself  up  in  his  own  home,  and  thus 
for  years  dwelt  only  with  himself, —  eating  his  own 
heart,  as  old  Burton  has  it,  —  and  when,  at  last,  he  be- 
comes unequivocally  insane,  his  misfortune  is  attributed 
to  love  of  solitude.  Another,  while  correctly  performing- 
all  the  duties  of  his  lot,  fears  that  he  will  eventually 
come  to  want,  though  with  enough  at  present,  and  with 
prospects  that  forbid  any  reasonable  anxiety.  He  is 
frugal  to  meanness,  denies  himself  and  family  the  com- 
forts suitable  to  their  station,  and  acts  as  if  the  poor- 
house  were  ever  looming  up  in  the  future.  After  years 
of  such  mental  experience,  every  incident  becoming 
gradually  intensified,  he  is  pronounced  insane,  and  his 
case  is  duly  chronicled  as  produced  by  fear  of  poverty. 
Now,  in  cases  like  these,  —  and  they  might  be  multiplied 
ad  infinitum,  —  it  often  needs  only  a  thorough  knowl- 
edge of  the  mental  history  of  the  individual,  to  find 
conclusive  proof  that  the  drinking,  the  love  of  solitude, 
the  fear  of  poverty,  &c,  merely  mask  less  obvious  steps 


6b  THE   CAUSES   OF   INSANITY. 

in  the  progress  of  tbat  morbid  process  which  finally  ends 
in  overt  insanity. 

When  the  prominent  events  are  many  and  nearly 
contemporary,  the  difficulty  is  scarcely  less.  By  one 
friend  the  attack  is  attributed,  for  instance,  to  the  trials 
of  an  arduous  and  highly  responsible  business.  Another 
attributes  it  to  the  loss  of  a  dearly  beloved  associate ; 
while  still  another,  better  acquainted  with  the  patient's 
private  history,  is  quite  sure  that  he  owes  his  misfor- 
tune to  fast  living.  According  as  we  consult  one  or 
another  of  these  friends,  we  shall  set  down  as  the  cause 
of  the  disease  application  to  business,  or  death  of  a 
companion,  or  intemperance.  And  yet  any  one  of  these 
incidents,  calculated  though  they  all  are  to  derange  the 
health  of  the  mind,  might  have  been  completely  harm- 
less in  the  present  instance.  The  business,  though 
arduous  and  perplexing,  might  not  have  been  beyond 
an  easy  stretch  of  the  mental  powers.  The  emotion 
caused  by  the  deep  affliction  might  have  subsided  under 
the  influence  of  time  or  the  pressure  of  duties ;  and  the 
manner  of  life,  though  not  conducive  to  longevity  or 
good  health,  might  have  been  borne  by  the  help  of  a 
strong  constitution.  It  is  all  a  matter  of  conjecture,  and 
conjecture  is  no  foundation  for  a  scientific  conclusion. 
So  that,  at  last,  with  all  the  information  within  reach, 
the  question  to  be  settled  is,  not  which  of  these  events 
was  the  cause  of  the  disease,  but  whether  any  one  of 
them  was  concerned  in  its  production. 

To  ignore  all  these  difficulties,  or  decry  them  as  of  lit- 
tle moment,  for  the  very  reason  that,  if  duly  considered, 
they  would  effectually  debar  us  from  arriving  at  any 
fixed  results,  will  not  help  us  to  obtain  the  truth.  In  all 
philosophy,  there  is  no  error  more  obstinate,  or  more 
fatal  to  true  progress,  than  that  so  often  witnessed,  — 


THE    CAUSES   OF   INSANITY.  37 

of  believing  that  any  conclusion,  however  defective,  is 
better  than  none.  To  the  unwary  reader,  the  Tables 
which  are  made  up  with  such  an  elaborate  show  of  sta- 
tistical accuracy,  representing  so  many  cases  as  caused 
by  domestic  affliction,  so  many  by  religious  excitement, 
so  many  by  this,  that,  and  the  other,  are  the  embodiment 
of  so  much  genuine  knowledge.  True,  he  may  be  told 
that  they  are  put  forth  only  as  approximations  to  the 
truth ;  full  of  errors,  indeed,  but  through  these  very 
errors  leading  the  inquirer  to  unquestionable  truth. 
Nevertheless,  the  caution  thus  implied  will  scarcely 
weaken  the  force  of  the  popular  adage,  that  figures  will 
not  lie.  Nothing  better  indicates  the  true  value  of  such 
statistical  results  than  the  fact  that  the  proportion  of 
cases  attributed,  in  our  hospital  reports,  to  "  Causes 
unknown,"  has  been  steadily  rising  from  zero  to  half  or 
more  of  the  whole  number.  This  is  not  an  expression 
of  positive  ignorance  merely.  Rightly  interpreted,  it 
means,  I  apprehend,  the  conviction  that  the  develop- 
ment of  insanity  generally  requires  a  concurrence  of 
several  adverse  incidents,  and  that  the  instances  which 
can  be  attributed  exclusively  to  any  one  special  event, 
however  prominent  or  serious,  are  exceedingly  few. 
Such,  indeed,  is  the  lesson  of  experience.  True,  it  dis- 
turbs the  complacency  naturally  arising  from  the  sup- 
posed discovery  of  something  clear,  well-defined,  almost 
tangible,  which  meets  the  question,  and  seems  to  answer 
the  conditions  of  the  case.  It  destroys,  at  a  blow,  a 
great  deal  of  fancied  knowledge,  and  leaves  us  to  wander 
about,  seeking  anew  for  the  solution  of  the  problem. 
Here,  as  everywhere  else,  truth  can  be  found  only  after 
long  and  patient  inquiry,  and  w^e  may  be  assured  the 
rule  will  not  be  relaxed  in  the  case  of  one  of  the  most 
difficult  questions  in  morbid  psychology. 


33U 


38  THE   CAUSES   OF  INSANITY. 

Occasionally,  no  doubt,  the  disease  may  be  attributed 
to  some  particular  occurrence,  the  circumstances  exclud- 
ing apparently  every  other  agency.  Even  then  we  fall 
short  of  the  object  of  our  search,  for  the  question  comes 
back,  why  such  an  occurrence,  which  has  happened 
times  without  number  to  the  children  of  men,  without 
any  harm,  should  have  proved  so  mischievous  in  this 
particular  case?  To  say  that  its  potency  for  ill  was 
caused  by  some  previous  adverse  incident,  and  that, 
perhaps,  by  some  other,  does  not  relieve  the  difficulty. 
Such  philosophy  is  no  better  than  that  of  the  Indian 
who  thought  the  earth  rested  on  an  elephant,  the  ele- 
phant on  a  tortoise,  and  the  tortoise  on  a  serpent. 

We  are  thus  led  to  the  inquiry,  whether  there  is  not 
something  behind  all  these  alleged  causes,  which  imparts 
to  them  all  their  potency ;  whether  there  is  not  some- 
thing in  the  original  constitution  of  the  brain  and  nervous 
system  of  the  patients  which,  with  more  or  less  aid  from 
favoring  circumstances,  determines  the  development  of 
insanity.  Most  persons  preserve  their  mental  integrity, 
even  through  a  life  of  trial ;  while  a  few,  with  no  trials 
at  all,  or  only  the  smallest,  break  down  utterly  and  come 
to  naught.  It  would  seem  to  be  an  inevitable  conclusion, 
that  this  difference  must  depend  on  the  different  degrees 
of  vigor  and  soundness  possessed  by  the  material  organ 
by  which  these  trials  are  sustained.  Time  out  of  mind, 
the  popular  belief,  sanctioned  by  the  wise  and  learned, 
has  been  that,  in  some  degree,  insanity  is  a  matter  of 
blood  —  something  transmitted  from  parent  to  child. 
Such  is  the  belief  of  the  simple  and  the  wise  now  — 
precisely  so  —  without  variation  or  improvement.  In 
how  large  a  proportion  of  cases  is  this  the  efficient 
element?  what  are  the  laws  that  regulate  its  transmis- 
sion?   what   are    the    conditions    of  its   existence   and 


THE   CAUSES   OF   INSANITY.  39 

development?  —  these  are  questions  of  which,  till   re- 
cently, we  knew  about  as  little  as  our  ancestors.     Their 
belief,  vague,  shallow,  and  partial,  seemed  sufficient  for  us. 
The  knowledge  we  have  gained  respecting  the  laws 
of  hereditary  transmission,  as   witnessed  in  the  brutes 
and  plants,  might  justly  have   been   expected  to  shape 
our  views  on  this  subject ;    but,   curiously  enough,   it 
seems,  in  a  great  degree,  to  be  theoretically  and  prac- 
tically ignored,  in  regard  to  man.     That  it  should  be 
disregarded  in  the  actual   practice   of  life  is  not  very 
strange,  because   the  fact   only   exemplifies  the  usual 
carelessness  of  consequences,  when  one  is  controlled  by 
interest  or  passion  ;  but  it  is  strange  that  observing  and 
thinking  men  can  see,  in  such  transmission,  nothing  but 
an  infelicitous  play  of  accidents.     And  many,  even,  of 
those  who  believe  in  hereditary  transmission,  have  but 
very  imperfect  conceptions  of  its  operations  and  con- 
ditions, as  compared  with  the  exact  and  abundant  in- 
formation of  the  breeder  and  the  florist.     The  prevalent 
mistake  is  that  of  regarding  no  disease  as  hereditary 
that  does  not  descend  fully  formed  directly  from  parent 
to  child.     Now  this  we  know  to  be  contrary  to  all  the 
analogies  of  the  animal  and  vegetable  kingdom,  where  a 
desirable  quality  is  obtained  and  fixed  at  last  by  being 
repeated  and  intensified  through  successive  generations. 
Permanent  traits  of  size,  shape,  color,  speed,  endurance, 
are  the  results  of  a  gradual  work,  and  nobody  contends 
that  they  are,  in  no  sense,  hereditary,  because  they  did 
not  exist  in  the  same  measure  in  the  parent  as  in  the 
offspring.     The  fact  seems  now  to  be  well  established, 
that  many  hereditary  diseases  other  than  nervous  often- 
times do  not  pass  through  their  successive   stages  of 
development  in  a  single  generation.     The  tubercle  that 
suppurates,  and  destroys  the  patient    in  the  maturity 


40  THE   CAUSES    OF   INSANITY. 

of  his  years,  may  have  originated  in  the  parent,  or  grand- 
parent, in  whom  it  gave  no  appreciable  trace  of  its  exist- 
ence. It  would  be  regarded  as  no  mark  of  wisdom  to 
ignore  altogether  this  relation  ;  and  yet  many  are  reluc- 
tant to  believe  that  insanity  is  often  the  result  of  abnor- 
mal organic  movements  that  have  proceeded  from  one 
generation  to  another,  gaining,  steadily  or  fitfully,  in 
intensity.  This  narrow  conception  of  the  great  law  in 
question  must  be  exchanged  for  broader  views,  before 
the  physical  conditions  of  insanity  will  be  studied  as 
their  importance  requires.  Until  we  recognize  and 
rightfully  appreciate  this  law  of  progressive  develop- 
ment, —  whether  as  manifested  in  improving  some  de- 
sirable quality,  or  moulding  some  feature  into  a  more 
graceful  form,  or  strengthening  the  foundations  and  en- 
larging the  range  of  some  morbid  movement,  —  we  shall 
fail  to  get  more  than  a  school-boy's  notion  of  the  relation 
of  cause  and  effect  in  the  production  of  mental  disease. 
Facts  illustrative  of  the  true  doctrine  are  abundant,  and 
we  have  only  to  consider  them  carefully  to  learn  their 
full  significance. 

Starting,  then,  from  this  settled  principle,  that  disease 
is  an  ultimate  product  elaborated  from  simpler  elements 
during  a  period  that  may  embrace  more  than  one  gener- 
tion,  —  that  its  essential  element,  considered  in  any 
stage  of  its  progress,  is  imperfection,  defect,  abnormal 
depreciation,  to  be  manifested,  under  the  process  of 
hereditary  transmission,  in  every  variety  of  form,  —  we 
shall  be  led  to  a  correct  theory  of  the  production  of 
insanity.  Under  the  adverse  influences  of  a  highly 
civilized  condition,  the  cerebral  system  suffers  in  com- 
mon with  the  others  ;  while  the  signs  of  such  suffering 
will  generally  be  found  only  in  the  mental  manifesta- 
tions, varying  all  the  way  from  some  slight  peculiarity  , 


THE   CAUSES    OF   INSANITY.  41 

or  anomaly  of  character,  to  the  gravest  moral  or  intel- 
lectual impropriety.  The  defect,  under  the  predominant 
influences  of  a  different  blood,  may  not  be  witnessed  in 
any  succeeding  generation.  More  frequently,  however, 
even  in  spite  of  this  conservative  influence  when  pres- 
ent, it  does  make  its  appearance  again,  in  one  or  more  of 
the  descendants,  in  forms  more  or  less  severe  than  the 
original.  One's  daily  experience  scarcely  fails  to  furnish 
illustrations  of  our  doctrine. 

This  person  manifests  a  certain  peculiarity  in  his 
manners,  in  his  turn  of  thought,  in  the  expression  of 
his  feelings,  in  the  character  of  his  discourse.  This 
signally  lacks  the  power  of  adaptation  to  circumstances: 
he  lives  and  moves  as  if  in  a  world  to  which  he  does  not 
really  belong,  and  is  always  above  or  below  the  require- 
ments of  the  occasion.  This  goes  through  life  with  the 
constant  idea  that  his  deserts  are  unjustly  withheld  from 
him,  and  without  reason  and  against  reason  is  jealous  of 
every  one  enjoying  blessings  beyond  his  reach.  This 
neglects  the  common  duties  of  life,  and  ignores  the 
common  sentiments  of  humanity,  while  dwelling  in  the 
realms  of  imagination,  and  charming  the  world,  perhaps, 
with  the  beauty  of  his  thoughts.  Now  all  these  persons 
go  through  the  ordinary  routine  of  life  very  well,  for 
the  most  part,  and  no  one  thinks  of  attributing  to  them 
any  mental  defect.  Nevertheless,  there  is  in  them  a 
departure,  be  it  never  so  little,  from  the  line  of  normal 
activities,  indicative  of  a  permanent  cerebral  condition, 
to  be  transmitted,  probably,  to  the  next  generation,  and 
manifested  in  some  form  or  other  of  mental  irregularity. 
One  child  passes  through  the  various  phases  of  hysteria, 
catalepsy,  and  other  nervous  affections,  a  burden  to  her- 
self and  to  others.  Another  delights  in  the  mysteries 
of    spiritualism,    and    finds    the    extravagances    of   the 


42  THE   CAUSES    OF  INSANITY. 

times  more  congenial  to  his  mental  temperament  than 
the  practical  realities  of  life.  Another  is  merely  con- 
ceited beyond  all  reasonable  limits,  aiming  at  much, 
sure  of  every  thing,  and  achieving  nothing.  Another 
has  seasons  of  deep  depression,  when  a  dark  cloud  that 
has  no  silver  lining  settles  down  upon  his  soul ;  and 
this  may  be  succeeded  by  a  period  of  exaltation,  when 
his  whole  horizon  is  bright  and  joyous.  Another,  in 
spite  of  the  holiest  influences,  becomes,  in  early  life,  the 
slave  of  criminal  impulses,  and  ends  his  days  in  a  hos- 
pital or  prison,  perhaps  on  the  gibbet.  Another  becomes 
unequivocally  insane.  Thus  the  abnormal  condition  of 
the  parent  is  represented  in  the  children,  —  not  always 
in  the  same  way  precisely,  but  in  any  possible  form  of 
nervous  disorder.  The  next  generation  will  probably 
show  us  the  morbid  element  equally  diversified,  and 
exhibiting,  it  may  be  to  a  greater  extent,  its  ultimate 
results.  It  is  immaterial  what  may  be  the  character  of 
the  primordial  germ.  It  may  assume  any  of  the  forms 
here  mentioned,  as  well  as  countless  others,  in  passing 
from  one  generation  to  another. 

It  is  another  of  the  organic  laws  on  this  subject,  that 
morbid  as  well  as  healthy  traits  may  disappear  in  the 
second  generation,  and  re-appear  with  fresh  energy  in 
the  third.  A  degree  of  eccentricity,  for  instance,  which 
renders  a  man  a  by-word  in  the  community,  affects  not 
at  all  the  mental  integrity  of  his  children,  but  among 
those  children's  children  may  be  observed  every  form 
of  mental  and  nervous  disorder.  And  even  when  the 
morbid  element  manifests  its  presence  in  each  succes- 
sive generation,  it  may  not  pass  down  in  the  direct  line 
of  descent.  The  uncle  or  the  aunt,  rather  than  the 
parent,  may  present  the  connecting  link  between  the 
grandparent  and  the  grandchild.    Such  facts  are  neither 


THE   CAUSES   OF   INSANITY.  43 

extraordinary  nor  anomalous.  The  suppression  of  a 
trait,  entirely,  for  one  or  two  generations,  its  transmis- 
sion by  collateral  descent,  its  infinite  variety  of  modifi- 
cations, are  facts  familiar  to  those  who  have  studied 
this  subject  in  the  animal  and  vegetable  kingdom.  Dis- 
ease and  tendencies  to  disease,  implying  as  they  do  a 
certain  organic  condition,  must  necessarily  be  governed 
by  the  same  laws  of  transmission.  If  these  were  better 
understood,  we  should  not  be  obliged  to  meet  the  objec- 
tion sometimes  made  by  men  of  liberal  culture,  that  the 
mental  disease  or  defect  so  often  dies  out  with  the  indi- 
vidual in  whom  it  originated,  that  its  occasional  appear- 
ance in  successive  generations  may  be  fairly  regarded 
as  accidental.  No  one  can  help  seeing,  on  a  little  re- 
flection, that  all  the  peculiarities  of  feature,  tempera- 
ment, and  mind,  in  both  parents,  cannot,  of  necessity, 
be  transmitted  to  any  single  child.  By  some  mysterious 
law  of  selection,  the  forehead  of  one  and  the  eye  of  the 
other  parent,  the  nose  of  one  and  the  mouth  of  the 
other,  the  vigor  of  one  and  the  fragility  of  the  other, 
the  stature  of  one  and  the  complexion  of  the  other,  go 
to  make  up  the  form  and  constitution  of  the  individual 
child.  A  feature  of  the  most  decided  character  may 
thus  fail  of  transmission,  even  to  a  single  one  of  a  numer- 
ous progeny.  The  same  law  governs  the  transmission  of 
imperfections  and  all  abnormal  traits.  No  more  are  they 
transmitted  to  each  and  every  child  alike.  The  myopia, 
or  the  hare-lip,  the  tendency  to  gout  or  consumption,  in 
one  of  the  parents,  may  be  witnessed  in  a  part  only  of 
the  children.     It  could  not  be  otherwise  with  insanity. 

This  occasional  disappearance  of  hereditary  disease 
marks  the  operation  of  the  great  universal  law  of  hered- 
itary transmission.  While  Nature  indulges  in  such  a 
vast  variety  of  forms  that  no  two  individuals  in  all  this 


44  THE   CAUSES   OF  INSANITY. 

immense  creation  can  be  found  exactly  alike,  she  per- 
mits no  considerable  deviation  from  the  normal  condition 
to  become  permanent.  Her  tendency  ever  is  to  abolish 
all  gross  anomalies  of  form,  feature,  complexion,  —  not 
excepting  disease,  —  and  to  reestablish,  in  all  their 
integrity,  the  original  characters  of  the  species.  Super- 
numerary fingers  or  toes,  extraordinary  conformations 
of  the  limbs,  defective  or  excessive  development,  —  all 
these  may  occur  in  a  few  generations,  but  having  no 
place  in  the  normal  constitution  of  the  species  they 
sooner  or  later  disappear.  Breeders  tell  us  of  the  great 
difficulty  of  maintaining  any  desirable  feature  which 
marks  a  considerable  deviation  from  the  normal  type. 
They  succeed  only  by  a  persevering  system  of  breeding 
in  and  in,  and  that  finally  produces  a  deterioration  of 
the  general  qualities  of  the  stock ;  and  it  is  obvious 
that  without  this  restraining  influence  these  deviations 
would  become  established,  and  the  distinctive  characters 
of  the  species  be  utterly  lost. 

The  same  law  also  restrains  the  indefinite  transmis- 
sion of  disease  and  defect,  which  would  lead  to  the  same 
result.  While  some  of  the  children  inherit  the  defects 
of  one  parent,  the  rest  inherit  the  excellences  of  the 
other  ;  and  even  when  both  parents  are  defective,  their 
sound  points,  by  being  firmly  fixed  in  the  blood,  may 
maintain  their  place  to  the  exclusion  of  the  others,  and 
the  offspring  thus  escape  the  blight.  It  must  be  con- 
sidered, too,  that  the  germs  of  the  disease,  when  actu- 
ally transmitted  to  the  child,  may,  under  favoring 
circumstances,  remain  latent,  and  for  lack  of  any  activity 
fail  to  be  transmitted  any  farther.  In  common  phrase, 
they  die  out.  Thus  it  appears  that  the  invariable  trans- 
mission of  any  quality  or  condition  is  contrary  to  the 
ordinances  of  nature  ;    and   that  the  absolute,  uncon- 


THE    CAUSES    OF    INSANITY.  45 

ditional  transmission  to  each  and  every  child  of  every 
trait  and  quality  possessed  by  the  parents  is  simply  an 
absurdity.  Amid  all  the  ways  and  works  of  the  Crea- 
tor, it  would  not  be  easy  to  find  a  more  wise  and  benefi- 
cent arrangement,  which  preserves  the  characters  of  the 
species,  while,  by  penalties  severe,  but  not  inexorable, 
it  prevents  the  deterioration  of  the  race.  Let  not  the 
kindness  and  mercy  which  preeminently  distinguish 
this  provision,  become  inducements  for  disregarding  its 
requirements  and  defying  its  penalties. 

The  course  of  our  inquiry,  then,  leads  us  to  this  con- 
clusion,—  that  in  the  production  of  insanity  there  is 
generally  the  concurrence  of  two  classes  of  agencies, 
one  consisting  in  some  congenital  imperfection  of  the 
brain,  and  the  other  in  accidental,  outward  events.  I  do 
not  say  that  mental  disease  is  never  produced  by  the 
latter  class  of  ageDcies  exclusively.  The  present  limited 
state  of  our  knowledge  forbids  so  sweeping  a  conclusion. 
Cases  sometimes  occur  where  the  closest  investigation 
discloses,  apparently,  no  cause  of  cerebral  disorder 
within  the  patient  himself.  There  is  good  reason  to 
believe  that  the  number  of  such  cases  would  be  lessened 
by  a  deeper  insight  into  the  inner  life,  and  a  minuter 
knowledge  of  those  organic  movements  which  lead  to 
disease.  We  know  that  even  in  those  cases  in  which, 
to  all  appearance,  the  casual  incident  was  most  compe- 
tent of  itself  to  produce  the  disease,  the  constitutional 
infirmity  may  be  often  discovered.  Drunkenness,  epi- 
lepsy, blows  on  the  head,  sun-stroke,  would  seem  capable, 
if  any  thing  outward  could,  of  producing  insanity :  but, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  we  find  not  unfrequently,  behind 
these  casual  events,  firmly  seated  in  the  inmost  consti- 
tution of  the  brain,  the  hereditary  infirmity.  Can  we 
believe  that  it  took  no  part  in  the  morbid  process  ? 


46  THE   CAUSES    OF   INSANITY. 

The  almost  universal  conjunction  of  these  two  classes 
of  agencies  being  admitted,  it  becomes  us  to  thoroughly 
understand  and  profit  by  the  fact ;  for  this,  like  most 
facts  on  the  subject  of  insanity,  may  be  turned  to  prac- 
tical account.  It  might  seem,  at  first  sight,  that  the 
presence  and  predominance  of  the  constitutional  defect 
implied  a  kind  of  fatality  in  the  course  of  things,  which 
it  would  be  useless  to  attempt  to  resist.  That  there 
may  be,  occasionally,  some  ground  for  this  idea,  it  would 
be  wrong  to  deny  ;  but,  in  a  large  proportion  of  cases, 
the  morbid  element  is  not  so  potent  as  to  be  entirely 
beyond  control.  The  peril  being  understood,  it  may  be 
kept  in  abeyance  by  avoiding  all  those  incidents  and 
influences  which  are  calculated  to  bring  it  into  active 
operation,  and  by  faithfully  complying  with  the  proper 
rules  of  living.  And  if  the  particular  doctrine  here 
taught  would  seem  to  lead  to  a  scrutiny  of  one's  men- 
tal constitution,  more  likely  to  produce  the  saddest 
apprehensions  and  forebodings  than  any  salutary  effect, 
it  must  be  considered,  on  the  other  hand,  that  entire 
ignorance  of  the  subject  must,  necessarily,  often  lead  to 
evil.  An  exact  knowledge  of  the  truth  may,  occasion- 
ally, excite  unpleasant  reflections  ;  but,  in  the  long  run, 
it  will  do  more  good  than  harm.  The  various  ways  in 
which  it  may  be  made  practically  useful  it  is  not  my 
purpose  to  describe  ;  but  there  is  one  view  of  the  sub- 
ject so  little  understood,  though  of  paramount  impor- 
tance, that  it  may  be  worth  our  while  to  dwell  upon  it 
for  a  moment. 

To  say  that  a  man's  character  and  conduct  are  deter- 
mined, in  a  great  degree,  by  the  original  constitution  of 
his  brain  and  nervous  system,  is  to  utter  a  truth  that 
can  hardly  be  called  new.  Few,  however,  are  disposed 
to  make  any  proper  account  of  those  cerebral  qualities 


THE   CAUSES   OF   INSANITY.  47 

which  imply  a  deviation,  of  some  kind  or  other,  from 
the  line  of  healthy  action.  It  is  not  in  accordance  with 
the  philosophy  of  our  times  to  see  in  them  an  explana- 
tion of  those  strange  and  curious  traits  which  are  utterly 
inexplicable  on  the  principles  that  govern  the  conduct 
of  ordinary  men.  How,  then,  could  they  expect  the 
popular  approbation,  who  find  in  them  a  clew  to  some 
of  the  mysteries  of  human  delinquency  ?  But  the 
teachings  of  science,  the  stern  facts  of  observation, 
cannot  be  disregarded.  Whether  we  ignore  them  or 
not,  sooner  or  later  their  full  significance  will  be  tri- 
umphantly acknowledged. 

In  the  popular  apprehension,  even  downright  insanity 
is  regarded  as  of  little  practical  account,  unless  it  courts 
observation  by  the  force  and  variety  of  its  manifestations. 
Only  its  more  demonstrative  forms  are  supposed  to  be 
capable  of  affecting  the  legal  responsibility  of  men. 
The  world  is  reluctant  to  believe  that  a  person  who,  in 
most  respects,  is  rational  and  observant  of  the  ordinary 
proprieties  of  life,  can  be  so  completely  under  the  in- 
fluence of  disease  as  to  be  irresponsible  for  any  of  his 
acts.  If  the  world  is  reluctant  to  allow  to  this  descrip- 
tion of  persons  the  immunities  of  insanity,  it  could 
hardly  be  expected  to  treat,  with  any  degree  of  favor, 
those  traits  or  conditions  of  mind  which  imply,  not  dis- 
ease, perhaps,  but  abnormal  imperfection  of  the  brain. 
And  yet  it  cannot  be  denied  that  the  course  of  thought, 
the  sense  of  moral  distinctions,  the  actual  conduct,  may 
be  greatly  affected  by  the  influence  of  such  imperfection. 
Are  we  not  bound,  then,  by  a  sense  of  justice  and  the 
claims  of  science,  to  make  some  account  of  it  in  form- 
ing our  estimates  of  character,  and  fixing  the  limits  of 
responsibility?  Can  we  do  otherwise  without  the 
grossest  inconsistency?     Knowing   that  an    individual 


48  THE    CAUSES   OF   INSANITY. 

is  descended  from  a  line  of  progenitors  abounding  in 
every  form  of  nervous  disorder,  shall  we  think  it  strange 
that  some  vestige  thereof  should  have  come  to  him  ? 
And  knowing  that  the  quality  of  the  brain  is  necessarily 
affected  by  such  disorder,  shall  we  not  seek,  in  this  fact, 
for  an  explanation  of  what  would  be  inexplicable  upon 
any  ordinary  principles  of  human  conduct  ? 

The  doctrine  of  transmission  here  adopted  warrants 
us  in  assuming  that,  if  fairly  considered  by  the  light 
which  the   facts  of  physiology,  pathology,  and  natural 
history  throw  upon  it,  it  will  furnish  a  clew  to  the  true 
philosophy  of  those  minor  or  obscure  derangements  of 
mind,  which   are   much   misunderstood,  if  not  entirely 
ignored.    It  was  once  the  common  belief  that  no  disease 
could  be  considered  as  hereditary  whose  exact  proto- 
type had  not  existed  in  a  previous  generation.     But 
nobody  now  believes  that  hereditary  disease  is  transmit- 
ted only  as  disease.     Every  day's  observation  shows  us 
that,  in  this  mysterious  operation,  it  is  not  the  disease 
itself — not  the  host  of  morbid  movements  implied  in 
that  term  —  which  is  transmitted,  but  what,  for  want  of 
a  better  term,  we  call  the  tendency  to  disease.    It  shows 
us  that  gout,  apoplexy,  or  epilepsy  never  passes,  fully 
formed,  from  parent  to  child,  but  only  such  a  constitu- 
tion of  the   inmost  principles  of  the  vital  organism,  as, 
under  favoring  circumstances  may,  in  the  course  of  time, 
be  converted  into  one  of  those  diseases.     The  .thing 
actually  transmitted  is  hidden  from  the  senses,  and  be- 
yond the  reach  of  the  scalpel  or  microscope.     But  it  is 
none  the  less  actual,  none  the  less  a  power  in  the  organ- 
ism to  be  manifested  by  the  most  serious  effects.    Now, 
insanity  is  subject  to  the  same  law  of  transmission  as 
other  diseases,  little  as  we  might  be  led  so  to  suppose 
by  the  prevalent  notions  respecting  it ;  and  the  law  is 


THE    CAUSES    OF   INSANITY.  49 

as  devoid  of  mystery,  as  sure,  as  explicit,  as  beneficent 
as  any  other  in  nature. 

Considering,  then,  that  tendency  to  disease,  not 
disease  itself,  may  be  the  only  thing  actually  transmit- 
ted, it  is  not  strange  that  overt  insanity  in  the  parent  is 
not  always  followed  by  the  same  condition  in  the  child ; 
nor  that  overt  insanity  in  the  child  has  not  always  been 
preceded  by  the  same  condition  in  the  parent.  Beyond 
the  mere  tendency  to  disease,  all  the  rest  is,  to  our 
apprehension, —  very  often,  certainly,  —  a  matter  of  acci- 
dent. Not  the  necessities  of  the  constitution,  but  cir- 
cumstances, determine  whether  the  tendency  remains  in 
abeyance,  or  is  converted  into  overt  disease.  Hence  it 
is  that  insanity  may  be  properly  called  hereditary,  even 
when  undiscovered  as  such  in  any  progenitor  of  the 
patient. 

The  tendency  once  established  in  any  particular  brain, 
the  next  step  of  the  inquiry  is,  to  know  what  becomes 
of  it.  To  this  question,  the  results  of  observation  fur- 
nish a  satisfactory  reply.  In  the  first  place,  like  all  acci- 
dental characters,  it  may  die  out  with  the  individual 
himself,  and  leave  no  trace  of  its  existence  in  his  off- 
spring. Secondly,  it  may  be  transmitted  to  his  immedi- 
ate offspring,  in  whom  it  may  assume  any  possible  form 
of  nervous  derangement  or  defect.  Thirdly,  it  may  re- 
main in  abeyance  in  the  next  succeeding  generation, 
and  be  developed  in  the  third  with  even  more  than  its 
original  gravity.  The  eccentric  old  man,  whose  conduct 
and  discourse  make  him  a  by-word  among  people,  per- 
petuates his  name  in  half  a  score  of  children  who  mani- 
fest no  mental  obliquity  or  defect,  while  among  their 
offspring  may  be  found  a  great  variety  of  each,  from 
the  simplest  peculiarity  to  furious  mania.  It  may  ap- 
pear in  early  youth,  in  the  form  of  chorea,  epilepsy, 

4 


50  THE   CAUSES   OF   INSANITY. 

catalepsy,  proclivity  to  mischief,  or  fits  of  passion ;  in 
maturer  years,  in  the  form  of  alternate  excitement 
and  depression,  of  irresistible  propensity  to  drink,  of 
striking  peculiarities  of  behavior,  of  some  strange,  un- 
expected, and  inexplicable  act,  of  raving  mania ;  in 
advanced  age,  in  the  form  of  premature  decay,  or  com- 
plete dementia.  The  incident  which  preceded  all  the 
subsequent  evils  may  have  been  a  slight  eccentricity, 
hardly  perceptible  to  the  world,  chronic  neuralgia  of 
the  head,  habitual  intemperance,  excessive  study,  or 
protracted  vigils  ;  a  defective  development  of  the  brain 
while  young,  produced  by  bad  physical  influences,  such 
as  impure  water  and  air,  lack  of  ventilation,  crowded 
and  uncleanly  dwellings,  hardship,  and  hunger.  Look- 
ing either  to  the  cause  or  the  effect,  we  see  the  utmost 
possible  variety ;  and  the  fact  should  teach  us  to  be  cau- 
tious how  we  undertake  to  circumscribe  the  range  of 
nature's  operations  in  the  broad  domain  of  cerebral  dis- 
ease. But  the  ailment,  whatever  it  may  be,  —  whether 
it  come  in  some  familiar  form  of  mental  disorder,  or  one 
of  those  obscure  conditions  which  perplex  both  the  wise 
and  the  simple,  —  whether  it  break  out  suddenly,  or  go 
through  a  long  course  of  development,  —  is  the  last  of 
a  series  of  morbid  or  abnormal  movements  whose  be- 
ginning was  in  a  previous  generation.  The  more  exten- 
sive and  accurate  our  observations,  the  more  strongly 
is  this  fact  confirmed ;  and  it  must  be  thoroughly  under- 
stood and  appreciated,  if  we  would  avoid  a  very  common 
error  on  the  subject. 

When  unequivocal  insanity  in  the  parent  is  followed 
by  the  same  affection  in  the  child,  nobody  is  unwilling 
to  recognize  in  the  fact  the  relation  of  cause  and  effect. 
But  when  some  obscure  phase  of  mental  obliquity,  or 
even  overt  insanity,  is  followed  by  some  form  or  degree 


THE   CAUSES    OF    INSANITY.  51 

of  mental  disturbance  not  distinguished,  by  any  positive 
characters,  from  normal  peculiarities  or  conditions  of 
mind,  the  idea  of  any  such  connection  is  apt  to  be  con- 
sidered rather  as  an  ingenious  speculation  than  a  strictly 
philosophical  deduction. 

This,  then,  is  the  general  conclusion  to  which  we 
are  led,  by  wide  and  careful  observation ;  viz.,  that  the 
hereditary  taint  of  insanity  appears,  in  various  stages 
of  progress,  from  the  lowest  to  the  highest  grade  of 
intensity,  and  under  a  variety  of  forms  and  aspects. 
This  being  so,  it  follows  that  these  various  forms  and 
stages  of  the  disease  are  as  worthy  of  investigation  as 
that  of  the  fully  formed,  fully  developed,  unmistakable 
attack.  Their  effect  on  the  mental  capacity  and  vigor, 
and  on  the  complexion  of  the  moral  sentiments  and 
determinations  ;  their  connection  with  the  habitual  feel- 
ings and  transitory  impulses,  with  the  power  of  resist- 
ing evil  and  pursuing  good,  —  are  points  on  which  we 
need  to  be  enlightened,  in  forming  our  estimates  of 
character,  especially  in  reference  to  moral  and  legal'  re- 
sponsibility. They  are  agencies  no  less  effective  than 
education,  social  influences,  or  mental  endowments ;  and 
these,  surely,  are  not  regarded  as  unworthy  of  attention 
in  this  relation.  To  admit  the  general  fact,  but  deny 
that  it  has  any  practical  value,  is  a  sort  of  philosophy 
more  indicative  of  prejudice  and  presumption  than  of 
sound,  scientific  reasoning.  That  disease  may  exist  in 
any  organ,  without  appreciably  disturbing  its  operations, 
is,  undoubtedly,  true.  Such  a  thing  sometimes  happens  ; 
but  it  is  an  exception  to  a  general  rule,  —  and,  conse- 
quently, only  proves  the  rule,  —  which  is,  that  disease, 
infirmity,  or  defect  of  an  organ,  necessarily,  in  one  way 
or  another,  affects  its  functions.  That  it  is  often  diffi- 
cult to  estimate  very  precisely  the  extent  of  this  deteri- 


52  THE    CAUSES   OF   INSANITY. 

oration,  I  grant ;  but'  cases  sometimes  arise  where  the 
fact  is  so  obvious,  that,  without  any  elaborate  reasoning, 
almost  instinctively,  as  it  were,  we  recognize  its  potency. 
Let  a  man  whose  family  abounds  with  cases  of  mental 
disease  be  arraigned  for  some  unexpected  crime,  and 
the  word  goes  round  at  once,  that  the  trouble  is  in  the 
blood. 

The  next  step  in  our  inquiry  is,  to  ascertain  how  we 
may  be  able  to  recognize  the  presence  of  the  hereditary 
taint.  By  what  signs  or  manifestations  have  we  a  right 
to  infer  that  it  exists  in  any  given  case  ? 

In  the  first  place,  we  must  bear  in  mind  that  it  would 
not  be  inconsistent  with  any  thing  we  know  respecting 
the  laws  of  disease  if  it  remained  in  a  latent  condition, 
unobserved  by  the  person's  most  intimate  acquaintance. 
A  good  physical  education  may  have  prevented  the  de- 
velopment of  diseased  tendencies,  a  sound  mental  disci- 
pline may  have  so  strengthened  the  powers  of  the  mind 
as  to  furnish  them  the  least  possible  play  in  the  habitual 
mental  movement,  or  no  fitting  conjunction  of  circum- 
stances afforded  an  opportunity  for  their  exhibition. 
Even  when  actually  manifested,  they  may  have  appeared 
so  little  like  the  traits  of  disease  as  not  to  be  recognized 
as  such  by  the  casual  observer.  Precisely  so  with  one 
who  has  inherited  a  tendency  to  bodily  disease,  —  con- 
sumption, for  instance.  A  judicious  physical  training 
may  have  so  strengthened  his  constitution  as  to  render 
the  local  defect  powerless  ;  a  broad  chest  and  florid 
countenance  may  negative  any  suspicion  of  pulmonary 
weakness;  easy  circumstances  and  a  genial  climate  may 
keep  the  noxious  germ  where  it  began,  to  the  latest 
hour  of  life,  or  allow  merely  that  slight  development 
which  is  cognizable  only  to  the  inspection  of  the  expert. 
And  the  same  sort  of  analogy  might  be  furnished  by  the 


THE   CAUSES   OF   INSANITY.]  53 

course  of  other  diseases.  Now,  in  these  cases,  there 
may  exist  no  doubt  as  to  the  inherited  tendency ;  and 
we  do  not  expect  of  the  person  that  amount  of  endur- 
ance under  exposure,  or  the  power  of  succeeding  in 
special  efforts,  which  we  do  —  other  things  being  equal 
—  of  those  who  are  born  with  no  such  tendencies. 
Neither,  when,  in  spite  of  all  appearances  to  the  con- 
trary, the  disease  does  break  out,  are  we  astonished  at 
the  fact,  or  inclined  to  ignore  its  existence. 

Disease  in  any  organ  is  manifested  —  if  manifested  at 
all  —  in  a  disturbance  either  of  its  own  functions  or  of 
those  having  close  nervous  connections  with  it.  In  one 
or  the  other  of  these  two  ways  only,  can  disease  of  the 
brain  be  made  apparent  to  the  outward  observer.  It  is, 
therefore,  a  fair  inference,  that  any  considerable  devia- 
tion from  the  ordinary  course  of  its  functions  indicates 
the  existence  of  disease,  in  some  one  or  other  of  its 
phases ;  and  one  of  its  functions,  I  take  it  for  granted, 
is  to  make  manifest  the  operations  of  the  mind.  A  notion, 
ostensibly  founded  in  fact,  but  really  without  any  such 
foundation  ;  an  irresistible  impulse  to  do  or  say  a  thing 
abhorrent  to  one's  own  ideas  of  fitness  or  moral  pro- 
priety ;  a  loss  of  self-control,  if  not  consciousness,  under 
extraordinary  trial ;  the  occasional  ascendency  of  appe- 
tite or  passion  over  all  the  restraints  of  education,  habit, 
and  conscience ;  an  act  of  violence,  unprovoked  by  any 
adequate  cause,  and  at  variance  with  the  character  and 
disposition,  coming  like  thunder  from  a  cloudless  sky, — 
such  traits  as  these  warrant  us  in  believing  that  the 
disease,  or  tendency  to  disease,  which  existed  in  the  pro- 
genitor, has  been  transmitted  to  the  offspring,  strength- 
ened and  quickened,  perhaps,  in  its  passage  through  one 
or  two  generations.  We  have  also  a  right  to  recognize 
the  hereditary  taint  in  those  extraordinary  phases  and 


54  THE   CAUSES   OF   INSANITY' 

incidents  which,  unexpected  and  unaccountable  as  they 
are,  always  amaze  and  perplex  the  superficial  observer. 
If  manifested  at  all,  these  are  its  legitimate  effects,  and 
they  ought  not  to  surprise  us.  Indeed,  it  should  sur- 
prise us  more  if  it  always  remained  in  abeyance,  and 
gave  no  token  of  its  presence. 

Of  course  it  cannot  be  denied,  that  manifestations  very 
like  these  attributed  to  the  hereditary  fault  may  and  do 
occur  in  a  normal  condition  of  the  cerebral  system  ;  and 
the. peculiar  difficulty  of  the  present  question  is  to  dis- 
tinguish the  one  from  the  other.  Cough,  pain,  fever, 
are  unmistakable  signs  of  disease,  which  we  are  in  no 
danger  of  regarding  as  compatible  with  a  state  of  perfect 
health.  On  the  other  hand,  an  act  of  mischief  or  folly, 
which  in  one  man  would  be  the  offspring  of  insanity, 
would  in  another  be  justly  attributed  to  moral  deprav- 
ity. Now,  it  is  a  fair  question  to  ask,  —  and  it  is  entitled 
to  a  satisfactory  answer,  because  one  of  great  practical 
importance, —  can  we  distinguish,  in  every  case,  between  . 
these  two  orders  of  facts,  with  any  reasonable  degree  of 
certainty  ?  With  no  disposition  to  make  light  of  the  diffi- 
culty, I  still  believe  that  it  requires  no  extraordinary 
skill  or  discernment  to  save  us  from  mistake  beyond 
what  is  incident  to  all  human  judgment.  The  occasion 
hardly  admits  a  thorough  discussion  of  this  point,  and 
therefore  I  will  only  briefly  indicate  some  of  the  rules 
which  should  govern  our  inquiries. 

Every  act,  every  course  of  conduct,  must  have  an 
adequate  cause  ;  and,  in  order  to  ascertain  this  cause,  we 
may  need  the  largest  knowledge  of  men,  and  a  profound 
discernment  of  the  springs  of  action,  and  of  the  effect  of 
social,  moral,  and  religious  influences.  The  question 
whether  a  certain  act  is  or  is  not  the  offspring  of  in- 
sanity, must  often  be  decided,  not  by  the  intrinsic  qual- 


THE    CAUSES   OF   INSANITY.  55 

ities  of  the  act,  but  by  the  circumstances  of  the  case. 
A  person  of  doubtful  mental  condition  must  not  be  con- 
sidered  as  responsible   for  an  act  of  violence,  merely 
because  a  Fejee  islander  or  a  professional  bravo  might 
do  the  same  thing  as  a  matter  of  business  or  pleasure. 
And  the  converse  of  the  proposition,  I  admit,  is  equally 
true.     An  act  of  violence  must  not  be  attributed  to  in- 
sanity merely  because,  to  a  person  of  high  culture  and 
correct   morals,  it   seems   inexplicable   on   the   ordinary 
principles  of  human  conduct.     In  one  community,  some 
forms  of  murder  would  very  properly  raise  a  suspicion 
of  insanity,  while    in  another    they  might  unquestion- 
ably arise  from  passion  or  calculation,  and  be  viewed 
with  indifference,  if  not  complacency.     Let  the  person, 
therefore,  whose  mental  condition  is  in  doubt,  be  com- 
pared, not  with  somebody  else,  but  with  himself,  in  con- 
nection with  the  circumstances  in  which  he  is  placed. 
In  cases  of  this  description,  a  man's  habitual  character 
furnishes  the  best  clew  to  the  nature  of  his  acts.     If 
these  are  apparently  inexplicable,  it  is  because  we  over- 
look the  only  key  that  will  unlock  the  mystery.     How- 
ever strange  and  unexpected  they  may  be,  a  thorough 
inquiry  will  show  that  they  are  consistent  with  the  laws 
of  psychology,  as   displayed   in   the   operations  of  the 
mind,   in    health  and  disease.     For  instance,  a  person 
commits  a  flagrant  crime,  though  nothing  in  his  previous 
history  would  have  led  one  to  begin  to  anticipate  such 
an  event.     His  record  is  fair,  and  not  even  the  closest 
scrutiny  of  friend  or  foe  can  detect  in  it  a  single  flaw. 
No  sudden  provocation,  no  ulterior  object,  no  overmaster- 
ing passion,   can  be  discerned.     He  comes  of  a  stock, 
however,  whose  nervous  constitution  has* been  vitiated 
by  some  defect  or  ailment  calculated  to  impair  its  effi- 
ciency and  derange  its  operations.     In   some   shape  or 


56  THE    CAUSES   OF   INSANITY. 

other,  it  may  have  been  transmitted  to  him,  and,  on  the 
doctrine  of  chances  alone,  the  fact  is  more  or  less  prob- 
able. Here,  then,  are  the  only  two  possible  solutions  of 
the  difficulty,  —  depravity  or  infirmity  ;  and  we  have 
no  right  to  choose  the  former,  merely  because  the  latter 
cannot  be  proved  by  the  grosser  tests.  Indeed,  a  super- 
ficial examination  finds  the  one  as  unsatisfactory  as  the 
other.  If  the  act  in  question  is  the  only  indication  of 
disordered  mind,  in  the  whole  life  of  the  individual,  the 
difficulty  of  reaching  a  satisfactory  result  would  be  in- 
creased, no  doubt ;  but,  taking  it  even  in  this  shape,  we 
are  warranted  in  saying  that  a  single  act  of  insanity, 
intruded  into  the  midst  of  a  correct  and  even  life,  is  not 
more  strange  than  a  single  act  of  depravity  apparently 
foreign  to  the  character  and  disposition.  In  most  cases, 
however,  —  might  I  not  say,  in  all?  —  a  thorough  in- 
spection of  the  mental  manifestations,  as  displayed  in  the 
conduct  and  discourse,  would  bring  to  light  certain  pe- 
culiarities which,  though  not  strictly  incompatible  with 
soundness  of  mind,  furnish,  at  least,  fair  ground  for  sus- 
pecting the  presence  of  hereditary  taint.  Excitement 
and  depression,  moody,  difficult  temper,  extraordinary 
proneness  to  jealousy  and  suspicion,  a  habit  of  saying 
or  doing  proper  things  under  improper  circumstances, 
an  unreasonable  disregard  of  ordinaiy  ways,  customs, 
and  observances,  an  habitual  extravagance  of  thought 
and  feeling,  an  inability  to  appreciate  very  nicely  moral 
distinctions,  gusts  of  passion,  reckless  indulgence  of 
appetite,  —  such  are  the  traits,  some  or  all  of  which 
will  be  generally  found  in  connection  with  transmitted 
mental  infirmity. 

It  may  be  replied,  that  these  are  mental  defects  sig- 
nifying, not  mental  unsoundness,  but  merely  that  sort  of 
imperfection  that  necessarily  belongs  to  human  nature. 


THE   CAUSES   OF   INSANITY.  57 

That  any  one  of  them,  singly  and  alone,  is  invariably  an 
indication  of  cerebral  infirmity,  I  do  not  contend  ;  but  I 
think  we  are  warranted  in  saying,  that,  under  certain 
circumstances,  each  one  of  them  may  bean  unmistakable 
sign  of  such  a  condition,  and  that  in  actual  practice  there 
can  be  but  little  difficulty  in  making  the  distinction.  Let 
it  be  observed,  however,  that  I  do  not  present  them  as 
indications  of  insanity,  but  rather  of  a  cerebral  condition 
which,  under  certain  circumstances,  may  become  in- 
sanity. And  this  is  the  point  that  deserves  especial^ 
attention.  When  a  person,  hitherto  regular  and  ra- 
tional in  his  ways,  commits  an  appalling  crime,  the 
world  is  very  reluctant  to  believe  that  it  could  have 
sprung  from  any  other  source  than  some  hidden  foun- 
tain of  depravity,  deep  down  in  the  recesses  of  the 
moral  being.  If,  however,  a  faithful  examination  of 
the  individual  shows  any  of  the  above-mentioned  traits, 
have  we  not  a  right  to  suppose  that  some  bodily  ail- 
ment or  some  moral  shock,  sudden  and  severe,  may 
have  quickened  the  morbid  element  into  overpowering 
activity?  There  is  nothing  in  the  nature  of  mental 
disease  that  forbids  the  supposition,  —  nothing  in  its 
rise  and  progress,  according  to  the  present  state  of  our 
knowledge,  incompatible  with  such  an  event.  Change 
of  phases,  slow  or  sudden,  rapid  development,  frequent 
fluctuations,  are  eminently  characteristic  of  mental  dis- 
ease. Admitting  the  morbid  element  to  be  present,  we 
can  scarcely  limit  the  modes  of  its  operation,  nor  be  sur- 
prised at  any  turn  it  may  take. 

Let  it  be  observed,  too,  that  this  sudden  and  rapid 
development  of  mental  disease  which  has  been  lying  in 
embryo  is  strictly  in  accordance  with  the  laws  of  morbid 
action,  as  witnessed  in  the  rise  and  progress  of  other 
diseases.     Tubercles  wThich  have  existed  in  the  lungs 


58  THE   CAUSES    OF   INSANITY. 

for  years,  giving  no  signs  of  their  presence,  are  suddenly 
aroused  into  fatal  activity  by  a  severe  cold.  The  germs 
of  inherited  gout  lie  unsuspected  in  the  system,  until 
some  impairment  of  the  vital  energies,  or  a  prolonged 
debauch,  furnishes  the  stimulus  which  they  require. 
An  inherited  tendency  to  apoplexy  quietly  waits  a  fit- 
ting occasion  for  the  fatal  stroke.  And  yet  the  world 
wants  no  better  argument  against  the  plea  of  insanity 
in  a  given  case,  than  the  fact  that  its  existence  was 
never  suspected  before  the  act  of  violence,  on  account 
of  which  it  is  offered.  In  making  up  our  opinion  re- 
specting the  mental  condition  of  the  party  concerned, 
the  very  act  most  significant  of  all  is  to  be  completely 
ignored ! 

Admitting  the  truth  of  our  doctrine,  it  becomes  our 
duty  to  inquire  what  practical  consequences  should 
rightfully  follow  it.  If  its  legitimate  effect  were  to  fur- 
nish fresh  license  to  passion  and  diminish  the  power  of 
self-control,  to  encourage  crime  and  endanger  the  wel- 
fare of  society,  I  should  be  inclined  to  regard  it  as  one 
of  those  truths  which  had  better  be  known  only  to  phi- 
losophers and  saints.  Believing  no  such  thing,  but 
rather  that  the  highest  interests  of  men  will  be  best 
promoted  by  making  the  mental  condition  in  question 
more  correctly  understood,  I  proceed  to  the  next  step 
of  our  inquiry. 

When  a  criminal  act  is  committed  by  one  who  has 
previously  given  no  indications  of  mental  disturbance 
though  the  circumstances  of  the  act  may  raise  suspicion 
of  unsoundness,  and  we  find  any  of  those  traits  which 
are  indicative  of  hereditary  tendency  to  the  disease,  we 
are  bound  to  allow  this  fact  some  weight,  at  least,  in  our 
estimates  of  responsibility.  We  are  bound  to  allow  ample 
scope  and  verge  for  the  unmistakable  manifestations  of 


THE   CAUSES   OF   INSANITY.  59 

disease,  before  we  lay  upon  the  offender  the  usual  con- 
sequences of  crime.  How  far  it  should  be  allowed  to 
affect  legal  responsibility  can  only  be  ascertained  by  a 
thorough  and  intelligent  investigation  of  the  circum- 
stances of  each  particular  case.  The  results  to  which 
we  arrive  must  always  be  more  or  less  conjectural,  but 
they  may,  at  the  least,  furnish  ground  for  doubt  where 
confidence  might  lead  to  injustice.  They  might  stay  the 
hand  of  the  law  until  doubt  should  be  converted  into 
certainty,  and  the  cause  of  truth  and  right  be  amply 
vindicated  before  men. 

Let  me  not  be  misunderstood.  It  is  no  doctrine  of 
mine  that  a  man  is  irresponsible  for  any  and  every  crime 
he  may  commit,  or  for  any  moral  delinquency,  simply 
because  some  of  his  progenitors  were  insane.  What  I 
contend  for  is,  that,  when  such  a  fact  appears  in  evi- 
dence, it  should  be  investigated  in  alt  its  relations  to  the 
party  concerned,  under  the  light  derived  from  the  pres- 
ent state  of  our  knowledge  on  this  subject,  in  order  that 
it  may  be  ascertained  if  the  mental  infirmity,  by  being 
transmitted,  in  some  form  or  other,  has  determined,  at 
all,  his  volitions,  impulses,  or  acts.  If,  under  such  an 
investigation,  it  shall  appear  that  his  character  or  con- 
duct has  been  marked  by  peculiarities  like  those  which 
usually  spring  from  the  hereditary  taint,  and  especially 
if  it  appear  that  the  criminal  act  was  accompanied  by 
none  of  the  ordinary  circumstances  of  crime,  then  a  rea- 
sonable doubt  is  thereby  raised  of  his  legal  guilt,  and  a 
suspension  of  judgment  justified,  until  farther  develop- 
ments shall  have  shown  the  true  nature  of  the  case. 
If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  act  in  question  appear  to 
have  been  a  rational  act,  rationally  done,  —  that  is, 
prompted  by  the  usual  incentives  to  action,  —  and  the 
individual  has  been  free  from  any  mental  obliquities  that 


60  THE   CAUSES    OF   INSANITY. 

might  be  fairly  attributed  to  the  hereditary  taint,  then 
it  cannot  be  justly  put  forth  as  a  ground  of  exemption 
from  the  ordinary  consequences  of  crime. 

The  importance  of  a  more  intelligent  appreciation  of 
this  class  of  cases  was  strongly  exhibited  in  England,  a 
few  years  since,  where  one  of  them  occurred.  Though 
scarcely  distinguishable,  at  first  sight,  from  the  ordinary 
run  of  crimes,  it  became  the  subject  of  comment  in 
Parliament,  and  divided  the  public  attention  with  the 
Schleswig-Holstein  difficulty  and  the  American  rebel- 
lion. It  distracted  the  opinions  of  eminent  experts,  it 
jeopardized  the  popularity  of  a  cabinet  minister,  and 
raised  a  general  clamor  throughout  the  kingdom.  A 
young  man  of  twenty -five,  named  Townley,  was  en- 
gaged to  a  young  lady,  both  of  highly  respectable 
character  and  connection.  Twice  the  engagement  was 
broken  by  the  lady,  ostensibly  because,  on  account  of 
his  want  of  business  or  means,  it  was  disapproved  by 
her  grandfather,  with  whom  she  lived,  but  really  —  the 
last  time  —  because  of  her  preference  of  another,  to 
whom  she  had  become  engaged.  The  affair  moved  him 
deeply,  and  in  great  agony  of  mind  he  solicited  and 
obtained  a  final  interview,  which  lasted*  two  hours,  in  the 
evening,  out  of  doors.  At  the  close  of  it,  be  killed  her 
with  a  pen-knife,  gave  notice  of  what  he  had  done,  and 
assisted  in  rendering  the  necessary  attentions.  It  was 
obvious  that  he  had  made  no  preparations  for  the  act, 
and  he  made  no  attempt  to  escape. 

It  appeared  in  evidence  that  he  had  always  borne  a 
good  character,  and  was  of  an  amiable  disposition, 
though  somewhat  excitable  and  peculiar.  His  grand- 
father's sister  and  a  first  cousin  had  been  insane,  and 
an  aunt's  aunt  had  had  ten  children,  of  whom  five  had 
been  insane.     His  own  account  of  the  transaction  was, 


THE   CAUSES    OF    INSANITY.  61 

that  he  endeavored  to  ascertain  from  her  the  name  of 
his  rival,  which  she  refused  to  give  ;  that  he  kept  down 
his  feelings  as  long  as  he  could,  but  was  finally  worked 
up  to  a  pitch  of  madness,  and  did  not  remember  any 
thing  at  the  last.  He  admitted  that  the  act  was  murder, 
for  which  he  would  be  hanged,  and  said  he  was  happier 
for  having  done  it.  Subsequently,  he  justified  the  act, 
on  the  ground  that  she  had  deceived  him,  declaring  that 
the  woman  who  deceived  him  must  die  ;  that  she  was 
his  property  as  much  as  if  they  had  been  married  ;  and 
that  he  took  only  what  belonged  to  him.  His  state- 
ments, though  free  from  all  signs  of  delusion,  unless 
some  vague  expressions  about  a  conspiracy  might  be 
regarded  as  such,  were  full  of  that  peculiar  extravagance 
of  sentiment,  insensibility  to  moral  distinctions,  inconsis- 
tency, and  contradiction,  so  characteristic  of  the  insane 
The  like  of  them  may  be  found  in  the  case-books  of  every 
hospital  for  the  insane. 

On  trial,  insanity  was  pleaded  in  his  defence,  but  he 
was  convicted.  The  judge,  however,  regarding  the 
medical  testimony  respecting  his  mental  condition  to 
apply  to  a  period  subsequent  to  the  homicide  (in  which 
testimony  was  that  of  a  distinguished  expert,  strongly 
in  favor  of  his  insanity),  he  transmitted  the  papers  to 
the  Home  Secretary,  Sir  George  Gray,  and  solicited  his 
attention  to  the  case.  This  gentleman  requested  three 
members  of  the  Board  of  Commissioners  of  Lunacy  to 
examine  the  prisoner  ;  and  they  reported,  as  the  result 
of  their  examination,  that  his  condition  was  the  same 
then  as  when  he  committed  the  act ;  that  applying  the 
law,  as  laid  down  by  the  court,  he  was  justly  convicted ; 
but  added  that,  "  in  view  of  the  extravagant  opinions 
deliberately  professed  by  him,  of  his  extraordinarily 
perverted   moral    sense,   and   of   the    hereditary   taint 


62  THE   CAUSES   OF   INSANITY. 

alleged  and  apparently  proved  to  have  existed  in  the 
family  of  the  prisoner's  grandmother,  we  cannot  con- 
sider him  to  be  of  sound  mind." 

In  the  mean  time,  in  conformity  to  a  statute  on  the 
subject,  three  justices  and  two  medical  men  examined 
him,  and  pronounced  him  to  be  of  "  unsound  mind,"  and 
he  was  accordingly  sent  to  Bethlehem  Hospital.  Where- 
upon, a  strong  remonstrance,  signed  by  forty  magis- 
trates of  the  county,  was  sent  to  the  Secretary,  who 
immediately  appointed  another  Commission  to  examine 
and  report  on  his  mental  condition  ;  which  Commission 
was  composed  of  four  physicians,  of  whom  two  were  then 
Superintendents  of  hospitals  for  the  insane,  and  two  had 
been  previously,  but  were  then  holding  the  office  of 
"  Visitors  of  Chancery  Lunatics."  These  gentlemen 
arrived  unanimously  at  the  conclusion  that  the  party 
was  of  "  sound  mind,"  and  forthwith  the  Secretary 
ordered  him  into  penal  servitude  for  life,  in  Australia. 

This  case  affords  an  apt  illustration  of  the  peculiar 
embarrassments  occasioned  by  the  mental  condition  in 
question.  It  is  easy  to  see  how  the  experts  honestly 
arrived  at  such  different  conclusions.  The  absence  of 
any  symptoms  of  insanity  previous  to  the  criminal  act, 
and  of  any  conclusive  one  subsequently,  was  undoubt- 
edly a  good  reason  for  believing  that  Townley  was  not 
insane  ;  while  his  extraordinary  notions  of  right  and 
wrong  seemed  to  indicate  one  of  those  selfish,  reckless, 
godless  spirits  —  too  common,  alas,  to  make  their  exist- 
ence a  matter  of  question  —  that  stop  at  nothing  in  order 
to  gratify  an  impulse  or  accomplish  a  desirable  end. 
According  to  legal  definitions,  certainly,  he  was  not 
insane,  nor  could  he  have  been  admitted  into  any  hos- 
pital for  the  insane  in  Great  Britain.  On  the  other 
hand,  considering  the  circumstances  of  the  act,  and  the 


THE   CAUSES   OF   INSANITY.  63 

remarkable  conduct  of  the  prisoner  immediately  before 
and  after  it,  in  connection  with  his  hereditary  tendency 
to  mental  disease,  there  was  ground  for  regarding  him 
as  insane  rather  than  depraved.  Had  the  homicide  been 
unaccompanied  by  this  hereditary  tendency,  or  the  latter 
not  been  followed  by  any  act  of  violence,  this  conclusion 
would  hardly  have  been  adopted.  As  it  was,  however, 
the  tendency  rendered  such  an  act  not  very  improbable, 
—  certainly,  not  extraordinary,  —  while  the  previous 
character  excluded  the  supposition  of  consummate  de- 
pravity. It  is  well  known  that,  in  most  of  those  cases 
where  the  first,  and,  for  a  time,  the  only  symptom  of 
insanity  was  some  terrible  act,  there  was  the  hereditary 
taint.  This  was  the  essential  element  in  the  present 
case ;  and  it  cannot  be  doubted  that,  if  the  experts  had 
all  placed  the  same  stress  upon  it  among  the  agencies 
that  led  to  the  criminal  act,  their  opinions  as  to  the  true 
character  of  the  case  would  have  been  more  nearly 
alike.  Forced,  perhaps,  by  the  exigencies  of  the  occa- 
sion, they  accepted  an  alternative  from  which  they 
would  have  shrunk  in  a  purely  psychological  inquiry. 
The  question  of  sanity  or  insanity,  however  proper  in 
the  administration  of  the  law,  was,  in  a  scientific  point 
of  view,  little  better  than  a  verbal  quibble.  With  as 
much  propriety  it  might  be  asked  whether  a  person 
with  tubercles  in  his  lungs  is  or  is  not  in  a  con- 
sumption. 

Under  our  view  of  the  subject,  the  true  character  of 
the  case  appears  divested,  in  a  great  degree,  of  the 
difficulties  that  encumber  the  professional  opinions  on 
both  sides.  This  young  man  inherited  a  tendency  to 
insanity,  whichrhowever,  up  to  the  event  in  question, 
had  given  little  token  of  its  existence.  In  the  ordinary 
routine    of   life,   where   there   was   nothing  to   try   his 


64  THE   CAUSES   OF   INSANITY. 

power  of  self-control,  or  disturb  the  current  of  his  feel- 
ings, he  performed  his  allotted  part  quietly  and  cor- 
rectly, if  not  very  energetically.  But  when  the  woman 
whom  he  ardently  loved  cast  him  off  under  false  pre- 
tences, the  evidence  shows  that  he  became  greatly  agi- 
tated ;  and  under  all  the  excitements  of  a  long,  private 
interview,  reason  was  easily  driven  from  her  seat. 
Whether  he  was  unconscious  while  inflicting  the  fatal 
wounds,  as  he  said  himself,  is  not  quite  certain,  but 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  his  feelings  were  agitated 
beyond  all  power  of  restraint.  No  sooner  was  the  deed 
accomplished,  than  the  inward  tumult  subsided,  con- 
sciousness returned,  if  it  had  ever  been  lost,  and  his 
usual  condition  was  renewed.  Of  course,  he  could 
hardly  help  giving  some  account  of  the  feelings  and 
motives  which  led  to  the  transaction,  and  here  he  be- 
trayed that  sort  of  moral  obliquity,  which,  though  not 
necessarily  indicative  of  insanity,  is  frequently  wit- 
nessed in  abnormal  conditions  of  the  mind.  The  manner 
in  which  he  undertook  to  explain  and  defend  his  con- 
duct was  such  as,  in  the  opinion  of  a  distinguished  ex- 
pert, no  sane  man  would  have  adopted.  His  discourse 
evinced  something  more  than  bad  logic  and  outrageous 
sentiment,  in  both  of  which  it  abounded.  It  was  full 
of  wild  and  extravagant  notions  which  no  man,  fairly 
claiming  to  be  sane,  would  have  regarded  as  likely  to 
obtain  the  slightest  credence  from  any  one  less  credu- 
lous than  the  simplest  child.  Even  if  we  suppose  that 
such  had  always  been  his  way  of  thinking,  it  was,  un- 
questionably, the  result  of  his  peculiar  mental  imper- 
fection, rather  than  of  mature,  deliberate  reasoning,  or" 
of  vicious  habits  and  training.  Not  unlikely  he  under- 
took to  defend  his  act  by  arguments  that  he  scarcely 
believed  himself.     Such  a  fact  is  not  uncommon  in  the 


THE    CAUSES    OF   INSANITY.  65 

operations  of  the  insane  mind,  when  called  upon  to  ex- 
plain conduct  to  which  it  has  been  impelled  by  the  force 
of  disease,  but  which  it  knows  to  be  wrong.  Now,  in 
all  this  there  is  nothing  extraordinary  or  improbable. 
Admitting  the  presence  of  the  hereditary  tendency,  it 
might  have  been  expected  that,  under  favoring  circum- 
stances, it  would  affect  the  mental  movements  and  dis- 
turb the  moral  perceptions,  to  such  a  degree  even  that 
a  most  horrible  act  might  seem  to  be  a  matter  of  right 
and  duty.  Nor  is  there  anything  in  the  history  of  the 
case  incompatible  with  this  explanation.  Every  trait  in 
it  might  find  a  parallel  in  the  conduct,  conversation,  or 
manners  of  the  decidedly  insane.  The  view  here  taken 
of  Townley's  case  was  fitly  confirmed  by  his  final  act, 
which'was  to  destroy  his  own  life  by  leaping  from  one 
of  the  galleries  of  the  prison  to  the  floor  below. 

The  records  of  my  own  observation  would  furnish 
cases  similar  in  character,  if  not  in  their  incidents,  in 
which  the  act  of  violence  was  equally  sudden  and  unex- 
pected, the  reason  of  the  patient  apparently  just  as 
sound,  and  his  reputation  equally  free  from  reproach. 
Had  the  incidents  been  similar,  experts  would  probably 
have  differed  as  widely  respecting  their  nature,  and  the 
public  would  have  been  as  deeply  indignant  at  any  show 
of  judicial  mercy.  It  is  because  they  are  not  extraordi- 
nary, and  because  great  injustice  may  be  committed,  and 
the  humanity  and  science  of  the  age  discredited  by  such 
mistakes  respecting  their  true  nature,  that  I  have  ven- 
tured on  this  discussion. 


STATISTICS   OF  INSANITY. 


[In  no  department  of  medical  inquiry,  probably,  has  there  been 
manifested  so  little  of  the  truly  scientific  spirit  as  in  the  statistics 
of  insanity.  The  plainest  rules  of  philosophical  investigation  have 
been  disregarded,  things  have  been  associated  having  no  necessary 
relation,  and  conclusions  have  been  drawn  that  had  but  an  indifferent 
foundation  in  facts.  It  certainly  might  have  seemed,  at  first  blush, 
as  if  the  large  opportunities  for  studying  insanity  afforded  by  the 
hospitals  of  our  times  would  have  made  us  acquainted  with  many 
things  respecting  its  origin,  propagation,  duration,  curability,  &c, 
that  could  well  be  expressed  in  statistical  forms.  That  they  have  not 
been  entirely  fruitless  in  this  respect,  I  am  glad  to  admit ;  but  the 
actual  result  can  hardly  be  regarded  as  a  large  contribution  to  our 
knowledge.  The  failure  sprung,  no  doubt,  on  the  one  hand,  from  a 
mistake  as  to  the  true  function  and  limits  of  statistics,  and,  on  the 
other,  from  erroneous  opinions  touching  some  of  the  manifestations 
of  the  disease.  The  first  mistake  consisted  in  ignoring  the  distinction 
between  matters  of  fact  and  matters  of  opinion,  and  in  deeming  the 
one  as  proper  a  subject  of  statistical  record  as  the  other.  In  this  way 
many  things  were  numerically  recorded  that  were  rather  the  ex- 
pression of  the  observer's  private  conclusions  than  of  any  definite 
phenomena  having  the  same  significance  to  everybody  else.  The 
proportion  of  cases  at  different  periods  of  life  ;  the  weight,  height,  and 
complexion  of  the  patients;  the  number  of  farmers,  carpenters,  shoe- 
makers among  them  ;  how  many  died  and  how  many  eloped,  —  mat- 
ters like  these  may  be  expressed  in  a  statistical  shape,  if  it  is  thought 
desirable,  without  giving  rise  to  any  misapprehension  of  their  mean- 
ing. But  when  we  undertake  to  give  a  numerical  value  to  such  events 
as  the  causes  of  the  disease,  the  date  of  its  origin,  the  number  of  re- 
coveries, &c,  we  are  dealing  with  the  uncertain  and  indefinite,  differ- 


STATISTICS    OF   INSANITY.  b'7 

ently  interpreted  by  different  persons.  What  we  record  on  thej-e 
points  might  greatly  differ  from  the  records  of  other  observers,  and 
thus  it  may  be  worse  than  useless  as  a  matter  of  statistics.  And  this 
objection  must  lie  against  every  incident  the  meaning  of  which  can 
be  open  to  doubt  or  diversity  of  opinion. 

Statistics  which  are  not  really  statistics,  I  have  said,  are  worse 
than  useless  ;  and  the  reason  is,  that  they  beguile  the  student  with  a 
show  of  knowledge,  and  thus  take  away  the  main  inducement  to 
farther  inquiry.  Why  should  he  look  farther  for  truth  when  it  al- 
ready lies  before  him?  Some  of  the  prevalent  errors  respecting 
insanity  and  the  insane  are  fairly  attributable  to  these  vicious  statis- 
tics, for  figures  make  a  deeper  impression  on  the  mind  than  the  most 
cogent  arguments.  During  the  three  and  twenty  years  that  have 
elapsed  since  this  paper  was  written,  some  of  the  objectionable  features 
here  mentioned  have  disappeared  from  the  statistics  of  our  hospitals. 
Evidence  of  improvement  in  this  respect  is  particularly  manifest  in 
the  Tables  prepared  by  a  committee  of  the  Association  of  Superinten- 
dents of  Xorth  American  hospitals  for  the  insane,  and  recommended 
for  general  adoption  by  that  body  at  one  of  its  recent  meetings.] 

Few  persons,  I  believe,  who  are  practically  acquainted 
with  the  subject,  are  quite  satisfied  with  the  present 
methods  of  reporting  the  results  of  management  in  hos- 
pitals for  the  insane,  or  are  prepared  to  place  entire 
confidence  in  the  general  conclusions  to  which  they  lead. 
Certainly  the  wish  has  often  been  expressed  that  greater 
uniformity  were  observed  in  these  methods,  and  that 
certain  conditions  and  events  connected  with  the  subject 
were  more  accurately  defined.  The  evil  in  question  has 
often  been  deplored  by  writers  who  have  the  strongest 
and  most  enlightened  faith  in  the  utility  of  this  kind  of 
statistics  ;  and,  until  it  is  remedied,  our  most  carefully 
elaborated  conclusions  can  claim  but  little  confidence, 
and  we  never  can  be  sure,  after  all  our  pains,  that  we 
have  made  any  positive  advances  in  knowledge.  Gen- 
eral rules  and  principles  that  are  fairly  drawn  from  ob- 
servations have  always  been  regarded  as  preeminently 


68  STATISTICS   OF   INSANITY. 

safe,  and  this  strictly  inductive  method  of  inquiry  is  now 
universally  considered  as  the  most  effectual  means  of 
arriving  at  the  truth.  It  would  seem  as  if  results  like 
these  could  not  be  otherwise  than  correct,  because  they 
are  but  the  general  expression  of  the  facts  themselves. 
It  is  this  very  appearance  of  certainty  which  sometimes, 
as  in  the  present  case,  blinds  us  to  the  actual  fallacy ; 
and  we  go  on  accumulating  and  hugging  our  treasures 
of  knowledge,  as  we  fancy  them,  until  we  find  at  last 
that  we  have  been  ingeniously  deceiving  ourselves  with 
an  empty  show,  while  the  substance  has  completely  es- 
caped us. 

Statistics  has  become  a  favorite  instrument  for  devel- 
oping truth,  and  is  now  applied  to  branches  of  inquiry 
which,  a  few  years  since,  were  scarcely  supposed  to  be 
within  its  reach.  That  it  was  capable  of  eliciting  phys- 
ical truth  with  an  extent  and  accuracy  then  not  thought 
of,  might  not  have  been  a  wild  supposition ;  but  no  one 
dreamed  of  seeing  it  used  to  elucidate  the  principles 
that  govern  the  social  position  and  moral  conduct  of 
man,  his  motives,  impulses,  and  propensities.  It  is  im- 
portant that  an  instrument  of  knowledge  so  widely  and 
confidently  used  should  be  thoroughly  understood  ;  its 
powers  being  judiciously  estimated,  and  its  application 
regulated  by  a  suitable  regard  to  the  conditions  of  the 
case.  It  is  a  simple  thing,  no  doubt,  to  add  and  sub- 
tract and  divide  columns  of  figures  which  a  patient 
industry  alone  was  needed  to  collect ;  and,  if  statistics 
consisted  only  of  these  operations,  it  certainly  would  be 
a  very  easy  affair.  But  statistics  implies  something 
more  than  a  process  in  arithmetic.  It  is,  or  should  be, 
a  profound,  philosophical  analysis  of  materials  carefully 
and  copiously  collected,  and  chosen  with  an  enlightened 
confidence  in  their  fitness  for  the  purpose  in  question. 


STATISTICS   OF   INSANITY.  69 

The  large  comprehension,  the  elevated  conceptions,  the 
masterly  power  of  mathematical  analysis,  were  not  more 
essential  to  Newton  in  unfolding  the  law  of  gravitation, 
than  the  acute  discrimination  of  materials  and  the  cor- 
rect appreciation  of  their  bearing  upon  the  principle 
in  view  were  to  Quetelet  in  developing  the  laws  that 
regulate  some  important  events  of  life  and  springs  of 
human  conduct.  Such  views,  however,  have  not  been 
prevalent ;  and  hence  has  arisen  the  fact  that,  thus  far, 
statistics,  with  all  its  show  of  accuracy,  has  been,  com- 
paratively speaking,  singularly  barren  of  results.  It 
would  be  difficult  to  mention  any  great  principle  of 
physical  or  moral  science  that  has  been  established 
chiefly  by  statistical  inquiries.  A  volume  would  not 
hold  the  instances  in  which  they  have  failed  of  success, 
though  undertaken  with  every  promise  thereof;  but  I 
will  mention  only  one,  of  recent  origin,  and  very  well 
known. 

The  taking  of  the  census  in  1840  was  deemed  by  our 
government  a  favorable  opportunity  for  collecting  a  mass 
of  useful  information  of  a  scientific,  moral,  social,  and 
economical  character.  The  preliminary  steps  were  ju- 
diciously taken,  the  information  sought  for  was  highly 
desirable,  and  the  result  appeared  in  the  shape  of  a  portly 
folio  volume.  To  a  stranger  it  presented  peculiar  claims 
to  confidence.  It  was  projected  by  an  enlightened  gov- 
ernment, supported  by  liberal  appropriations,  and  re- 
ceived the  approval  of  some  distinguished  names.  If 
statistical  inquiries  were  ever  worth  anything,  they  cer- 
tainly seemed  to  be  in  this  instance.  To  those  who  had 
a  nearer  view  of  the  undertaking,  it  was  seen  to  com- 
prise a  mass  of  heterogeneous  details  intrusted  to  a  mul- 
titude of  individuals  few  of  whom  could  comprehend 
their  nature,  or  had  the  requisite  skill  for  assorting  and 


70  STATISTICS   OF   INSANITY. 

classifying  their  materials,  and  printed  with  an  unparal- 
leled carelessness  that  increased  tenfold  the  original 
blunders.  And  yet,  with  all  its  pretension,  the  United 
States  Census  for  1840  can  be  received  as  reliable  au- 
thority for  no  single  fact  whatever. 

It  is  a  common  saying  that  figures  will  not  lie  ;  but  it 
is  very  certain  that  in  the  hands  of  the  ignorant,  the  care- 
less, the  undiscriminating,  they  may  become  most  potent 
instruments  of  falsehood.  The  historian,  the  chemist, 
the  naturalist,  all  require  unexceptionable  authority  for 
the  facts  that  claim  their  belief,  and  never  hesitate  to 
subject  them  to  a  rigid  scrutiny.  It  is  probably  because 
statistical  facts  have  met  with  too  easy  a  faith,  that  con- 
clusions drawn  from  them  have  so  often  been  swept 
away  by  the  subsequent  progress  of  knowledge.  To 
those  accustomed  to  the  close  and  careful  examination 
of  facts  that  characterizes  other  departments  of  natural 
science,  it  is  inconceivable  what  slender  materials  have 
served  as  the  foundation  of  very  important  deductions  in 
this  we  are  now  considering.  On  the  faith  of  the  Cen- 
sus of  1840,  it  was  proclaimed  to  the  world,  with  no  or- 
dinary emphasis,  that  the  free  colored  population  is  more 
liable  to  insanity  than  the  white ;  and  the  fact  was  ex- 
ultingly  held  up  by  one  of  our  most  distinguished 
statesmen,  as  an  argument  in  favor  of  slavery.  The 
Census  has  gone  to  every  great  library  in  Europe,  but 
without  the  exposure  of  its  errors ;  and  in  many  a 
future  work,  no  doubt,  will  be  found  the  record  of  this 
strange  deduction.  A  few  years  since,  the  world  was 
inclined  to  yield  us  the  credit  of  extraordinar}T  success 
in  the  cure  of  insanity,  because  in  a  certain  institution 
in  our  country  the  number  of  recoveries  in  recent 
cases  had  amounted  to  91|  per  cent  of  the  discharges. 
It  was  not  made  known   that  this  result  was  founded 


STATISTICS   OF   INSANITY.  71 

on   the   experience   of  one  year  in   twenty-three  cases 
only. 

The  results  of  experience  in  hospitals  for  the  insane 
have  been  annually  published  with  some  minuteness  of 
detail,  both  because  the  community  is  desirous  of  seeing 
how  far  its  institutions  have  met  their  destined  purpose, 
and  because  their  physicians  are  actuated  by  the  lauda- 
ble desire  to  exhibit  the  result  of  observations  which 
their  position  has  enabled  them  to  make  upon  a  much 
larger  scale  than  they  possibly  could  in  a  private  capa- 
city. All  this  is  well,  and  I  doubt  not  much  valuable 
information  has  been  elicited.  I  trust,  however,  I  may  be 
permitted  to  question,  without  giving  offence,  whether 
the  amount  of  information  is  at  all  commensurate  with 
the  real  labor  involved,  and  the  ostensible  accuracy  of 
the  facts  and  deductions.  This  remarkable  failure  is 
deserving  of  the  most  serious  consideration,  in  order 
that  its  causes  may  be  ascertained  and  removed,  and 
our  future  inquiries  be  prosecuted  in  a  more  profitable 
direction.  In  this  stage  of  the  discussion  it  will  be  suf- 
ficient to  say,  that,  to  make  our  statistics  profitable,  they 
should  embrace  such  facts  only  as  are  intrinsically  im- 
portant, and  free  from  all  admixture  with  mere  opinion. 
Bearing  in  mind  these  tests,  we  shall  be  better  prepared 
to  measure  the  real  value  of  the  statistics  usually  con- 
tained in  the  reports  of  our  asylums.  Of  course  the 
limits  of  a  paper  like  this  must  confine  our  attention 
to  the  most  prominent  points. 

No  subject  connected  with  insanity  possesses  so  deep 
and  general  an  interest  as  its  curability,  and  this  fact 
has  lead  to  the  universal  practice  among  asylums  of 
reporting  the  number  of  their  recoveries.  The  result 
is  supposed,  by  implication  at  least,  to  be  a  fair  measure 
of  the  professional  skill  and  other  curative  influences 


72  STATISTICS    OF   INSANITY. 

with  which  the  disease  has  been  combated,  and  to  in- 
dicate, with  more  or  less  exactness,  the  general  curabil- 
ity of  the  disease.  The  question  then  is,  whether  these 
inferences  are  fairly  deducible  from  the  premises.  It 
is  admitted  that  there  are  various  circumstances  affect- 
ing the  results  of  every  large  establishment  that  have 
no  necessary  connection  with  them.  To  leave  these 
entirely  out  of  view  would  be  taking  the  first  step  to 
unlimited  error  and  confusion,  while  to  estimate  exactly 
their  respective  influence  upon  the  results  would  be 
beyond  the  reach  of  human  penetration.  The  manner 
in  which  they  balance  and  counteract  one  another,  so 
as  to  embarrass  all  our  conclusions,  will  be  sufficiently 
apparent  in  the  course  of  this  discussion. 

The  number  of  recoveries  will  be  affected  by  the  phys- 
ical constitution  of  the  patients.  The  more  robust  and 
vigorous  they  are,  the  more  readily  will  they  recover. 
In  rural  districts  there  is  a  higher  condition  of  health 
than  in  the  manufacturing  and  commercial;  and  this  fact, 
so  far  as  it  goes,  gives  to  the  asylums  of  the  former  an 
advantage  over  those  of  the  latter,  in  respect  to  the 
number  of  recoveries.  Again,  the  comparative  sparse- 
ness  of  the  population  in  the  former,  and  the  greater 
difficulty  of  gaining  access  to  the  asylum,  will  delay  the 
admission  of  many,  and  thus  protract,  if  not  altogether 
prevent,  their  recovery.  The  smaller  pecuniary  ability 
of  people  in  the  country  as  compared  with  those  in  the 
city  will  also  lead  to  premature  removals,  and  conse- 
quently, so  far,  to  a  smaller  number  of  recoveries.  On 
the  other  hand,  asylums  on  our  sea-board  which  receive 
large  numbers  of  foreigners  worn  down  by  hardships 
and  exposure,  many  of  them  sent  from  home,  it  may  be, 
because  of  their  liability  to  insanity,  have,  in  this  cir- 
cumstance, a  drawback  scarcely  known  to  those  of  the 


STATISTICS   OF   INSANITY.  73 

ural  districts.  Circumstances  like  these  —  and  the 
list  might  be  greatly  extended  —  cannot  be  expressed 
in  any  statistical  form :  they  can  only  be  stated  in 
general  terms,  and  we  can  obtain  only  a  general  im- 
pression of  their  influence  upon  the  result.  They  do  not 
affect  the  facts,  but  only  prevent  us  from  drawing  cer- 
tain conclusions  which,  at  first  sight,  they  might  seem  to 
warrant.  There  is  a  very  serious  objection,  however, 
lying  against  the  facts  themselves. 

Statistics  can  be  properly  applied  only  to  incidents 
and  events  that  have  an  objective  existence,  for  such 
only  are  cognizable  to  all  men  and  admit  of  neither 
doubt  nor  mistake.  Just  so  far  as  they  have  a  sub- 
jective relation  to  the  mind,  —  are  merely  matters  of 
opinion,  —  to  that  degree  they  are  incapable  of  being 
statistically  expressed.  Thus  the  event  of  recovery, 
limited  solely  to  its  objective  character,  only  amounts 
to  a  certain  degree  of  improvement.  Whether  the 
change  is  a  real  cure  of  disease,  or  a  state  where  dis- 
eased manifestations  are  absent  merely  from  want  of  a 
suitable  opportunity  for  displaying  them,  or  a  temporary 
intermission  of  disease  governed  by  that  law  of  period- 
icity to  which  nervous  affections  are  closely  subjected,  — 
these  are  questions  which  every  individual  will  answer 
by  the  aid  of  his  own  experience  and  judgment,  and  con- 
sequently with  all  that  diversity  which  is  utterly  incom- 
patible with  statistical  accuracy.  The  cases  are  not  few 
which  one  man  would  pronounce  to  be  recoveries,  while 
another  of  less  sanguine  temper,  or  more  knowledge  of 
insanity,  would  regard  them  as  merely  improvements.  I 
presume  that,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  we  are  often  in  doubt 
respecting  the  condition  of  patients  discharged  from 
our  care,  and  hesitate  long  before  we  decide  under 
what  head  of  our  general  results  they  shall  be  placed. 


74  STATISTICS   OF   INSANITY. 

And  when  we  finally  make  up  our  mind,  is  it  with  that 
degree  of  confidence  that  would  embolden  us  to  deny 
that  anybody  else  could  possibly  arrive  at  a  different 
conclusion  ?  What  then  becomes  of  the  value  of  such  a 
conclusion  considered  as  a  statistical  fact? 

It  is  obvious  therefore  that  the  question  must  first  be 
answered,  what  degree  of  restoration  can  be  rightfully 
called  recovery.  Of  course  every  one  answers  it  for 
himself  as  he  best  can,  but  statistical  accuracy  requires 
that  all  should  answer  it  alike.  It  is  one  of  the  laws  of 
nervous  disease,  that  it  may  be  suspended  or  checked 
for  a  period  varying  indefinitely  in  length,  and  then, 
after  intervals  measured  by  weeks,  or  months,  or  years,  be 
renewed  in  all  its  original  severity.  The  intervals  may 
or  may  not  recur  with  the  utmost  regularity.  They 
may  continue  for  many  months,  or  appear  to  be  merely 
a  transition  state  marking  the  passage  of  the  mind  from 
one  paroxysm  to  another.  The  restoration  may  be  ap- 
parently perfect,  or  marked  by  many  a  trace  of  disease. 
Now  in  regard  to  extreme  cases  there  will  be  no  diver- 
sity of  opinion.  An  interval  in  which  the  mind  presents 
its  normal  condition,  and  which  extends  over  a  period  of 
years, no  one  would  hesitate  to  call  a  recovery,  while  only 
a  week  or  two  of  calm  would  be  universally  regarded  as 
not  entitled  to  the  name.  But  it  is  clear  that  some  con- 
ventional rule  is  necessary  for  determining,  among  the 
various  intermediate  forms  and  degrees  of  restoration, 
what  should  be  reported  as  recoveries.  Now  admitting 
that  such  a  rule  might  be  made,  for  I  would  not  pre- 
scribe limits  to  human  ingenuity  and  acuteness,  there  is 
a  more  serious  difficulty  remaining,  —  that  of  recognizing 
the  condition  or  event  to  which  the  rule  is  to  be  applied. 
Here  would  arise  a  diversity  of  views  springing  from 
diversity  of  temperament,  education,  and  experience ;  and 


STATISTICS   OF  INSANITY.  75 

no  one  could  be  sure  that  his  decision  in  any  particular 
case  is  just  what  others  would  adopt  were  it  submitted 
to  them.  For  instance,  we  might  agree  to  call  a  lucid 
interval  which  continues  six  months  or  upward  a  recov- 
ery ;  but  as  to  the  actual  fact,  whether  a  lucid  interval 
has  really  occurred,  how  are  we  to  prevent  conflicting 
opinions?  The  truth  is,  however,  that  in  the  present 
statistics  of  recovery  no  conventional  rule  whatever  has 
been  followed.  Every  individual  has  decided  what  should 
and  what  should  not  be  called  recoveries,  just  as  it  seemed 
good  in  his  own  sight. 

I  do  not  see  how  the  usual  answer  to  these  objections, 
that  they  apply  to  but  a  very  small  proportion  of  cases, 
can  satisfy  anyone  having  a  practical  acquaintance  with 
the  subject.  How  can  we  deny  the  fact,  that,  of  the 
patients  discharged  from  our  hospitals,  there  is  always  a 
considerable  number  whose  proper  place  in  our  annual 
summary  of  results  is  a  matter  of  much  doubt.  It  is  not 
one  of  those  trifling  fractions  that  can  have  no  perceptible 
effect, but  large  enough  to  destroy  that  precision  and  cer- 
tainty which  we  expect  in  statistical  reports. 

In  order  that  the  proportion  of  recoveries  may  better 
represent  the  relative  success  of  different  institutions,  it 
has  been  a  very  common  practice  to  divide  cases  into  two 
classes,  the  old  and  recent  ;jt  being  implied  that  the  cu- 
rability of  the  disease  is  chiefly  determined  by  its  dura- 
tion before  admission.  Certainly  this  distinction  would 
have  the  effect  in  question,  were  it  practicable  ;  but  no 
one,  I  presume,  would  deny  that  in  a  large  number  of 
cases  we  are  unable  to  decide  satisfactorily  to  ourselves 
whether  the  disease  has  or  has  not  commenced  within 
the  period  allotted  to  recent  cases.  The  earliest  aber- 
rations of  the  disordered  mind  differ  so  little  from  its  or- 
dinary movements,  that  they  are  readily  confounded  by 


76  STATISTICS   OF   INSANITY. 

the  careless  or  unskilful  observer.     And  even  when  the 
attention  is  awakened  and  apprehensions  excited,  some 
psychological  knowledge  is  required  to  prevent  one  from 
mistaking  morbid  for  healthy  manifestations.    Of  the  per- 
sons on  whom  we  have  to  depend  for  all  our  information 
respecting  the  origin  of  the  disease  in  the  cases  that 
come  under  our  charge,  very  few  possess  this  knowl- 
edge, or  have  observed    the    cases  very  closely.      To 
regard  the  narratives  we  usually  receive  with  our  pa- 
tients as  sufficient  authority  for  a  scientific  fact,  would 
almost  indicate  insanity  in  ourselves.    Not  that  they  are 
invariably    false    and  unreliable,  but  that  we  are  gen- 
erally without  the  means  of  knowing  when  they  are  and 
when  they  are  not  so.     We  all  know,  undoubtedly,  how 
seldom  the  account  we  first  receive  of  a  patient  is  en- 
tirely confirmed  by  those  we  subsequently  obtain,  and 
how  often,  in  consequence,  we  are  obliged  to  modify 
our  first  decision.     But,  even  with  the  completest  his- 
tory of  the  case,  it  is  not  always  easy  to  say  when  the 
disease  actually  began.     For  months  or  even  years  be- 
fore  the  first  decided    and    obvious   manifestations   of 
disease,  the  patient  may  have  evinced  something  un- 
usual in  his  conduct  or  conversation,  although  engaged 
in  his  customary    duties,   and    by    the    world  at  large 
regarded  as  in  the  full  possession  of  his  reason.      In 
some  cases  the  morbid  peculiarities  may  be  sufficiently 
developed  to  attract  the  attention  of  the  world  ;  but,  not 
interfering  with  the  performance  of  the  ordinary  duties 
of  life,  they  are  looked  upon  as  a  part  of  the  natural 
character,   and   take   the  name  of  insanity   only   when 
accompanied  by  an  extra  degree  of  excitement  and  vio- 
lence.    In  cases  like  these,  who  will  take  upon  himself 
to  indicate  the  precise  point  when  disease  began?    Who 
will  presume  to  enter  that  debatable   land  which  lies 


STATISTICS   OF   INSANITY.  77 

between  the  realms  of  eccentricity  and  insanity,  and 
assign  to  each  its  respective  share  of  the  peculiar  mani- 
festations ? 

The  large  class  of  periodical  and  paroxysmal  cases 
present  insuperable  difficulties  to  every  attempt  to  bring 
them  under  any  general  rule.  The  question  of  their 
origin  is  complicated  with  that  of  their  recovery,  and 
we  are  under  the  same  kind  of  embarrassment  in  decid- 
ing upon  the  former  that  we  experience  with  regard  to 
the  latter.  If  we  are  to  regard  every  fresh  attack  that 
has  been  preceded  by  a  distinctly  marked  lucid  interval 
of  considerable  duration,  as  a  recent  case,  can  we  adopt 
any  rule  that  will  prevent  us  from  bringing  within  the 
same  category  those  cases  in  which  the  interval  is 
scarcely  more  than  a  brief  remission  of  the  disease  ?  A 
single  instance  will  be  sufficient  to  illustrate  the  diffi- 
culty. A  person  is  subject  to  paroxysms  of  high  excite- 
ment when  he  is  destitute  of  all  self-control,  and  for  the 
sake  of  decency  and  safety  must  be  kept  in  close  con- 
finement. In  this  condition  he  is  placed  in  a  hospital 
where  the  excitement  passes  off,  and  he  is  discharged. 
He  returns  home,  engages  in  his  customary  pursuits, 
and,  for  all  practical  purposes  certainly,  appears  as 
sound  as  ever.  In  the  course  of  a  few  weeks  or 
months,  the  excitement  returns.  Again  he  is  placed  in 
a  hospital,  again  he  becomes  calm  and  lucid,  and  again 
is  allowed  to  go  home.  Are  we  prepared  to  say  that 
every  such  admission  of  this  person  is  a  recent  case,  and 
every  discharge  a  recovery?  If,  on  the  other  hand, 
such  cases  are  to  be  regarded  as  old,  what  shall  we  say 
of  those  in  which  the  lucid  interval  continues  for  years  ? 
True,  every  chief  of  a  hospital  may  have  a  rule  of  his 
own  ;  but  the  consequence  would  be  that  we  should  have 
as  many  different  rules  and  as  many  results  as  there  are 


78  STATISTICS   OF    INSANITY. 

hospitals.  And  even  admitting  that  a  general  rule  were 
formed  and  agreed  upon,  that  a  certain  number  of  weeks 
or  months  should  mark  the  distinction  between  a  mere 
lucid  interval  and  a  perfect  recovery,  yet  no  one  with 
any  practical  acquaintance  with  the  subject  can  imagine 
that  the  application  of  it  would  always  be  easy  and 
uniform.  During  the  alleged  interval,  is  the  mind  really 
clear  and  unclouded  by  disease,  or  are  its  obscurations 
less  dark  only  because  the  absence  of  excitement  leads 
the  patient  to  withdraw  himself  from  the  common  notice, 
and  refrain  from  obtruding  his  fancies  upon  others  ?  Is 
the  interval  itself,  whether  clear  or  otherwise,  so  well 
defined  that  it  can  be  bounded  by  days  or  weeks  ?  These 
questions  must  be  often  asked.  Does  any  one  believe 
they  would  receive  a  uniform  answer? 

Dr.  Thurnam,  the  Superintendent  of  the  Retreat  at 
York,  whose  faith  in  the  value  of  the  hospital  statistics 
of  insanity  is  unshaken  by  such  objections,  thinks  that 
no  practical  difficulty  will  be  experienced  in  determin- 
ing the  date  of  the  disorder,  "  if  it  be  understood  that 
its  origin  should  be  dated  from  the  period  when  self- 
control  was  first  decidedly  lost,  and  when  overt  acts  of 
insanity  were  for  the  first  time  actually  manifested ;  and 
that  it  should  not  include  the  time  during  which,  from 
the  a  posteriori  history,  the  existence  of  a  latent  state 
of  mental  disorder,  as  indicated  by  more  or  less  of  pecu- 
liarity, may  be  inferred."  l  In  the  spirit  of  this  remark, 
he  approves  of  the  practice  which  has  always  prevailed 
in  the  institution  with  which  he  is  connected,  of  subdi- 
viding their  recent  cases  into  two  classes,  one  contain- 
ing such  as  have  been  disordered  according  to  the  above 
rule  three  months  or  less,  and  the  other  such  as  have 

1  Observations  and  Essays  on  the  Statistics  of  Insanity,  p.  52. 


STATISTICS   OF    INSANITY.  «9 

been  disordered  not  less  than  three  nor  more  than  twelve 
months.  If  Dr.  Thurnam  experiences  no  practical  diffi- 
culty in  applying  his  rule,  I  can  only  admire  a  sagacity 
which  I  cannot  pretend  to  share.  In  a  treatise  charac- 
terized by  such  fulness  of  detail  and  acuteness  of  ob- 
servation, it  would  have  been  gratifying  to  find  how 
periodical  cases  are  disposed  of  under  the  rule,  because 
they  peculiarly  embarrass  this  question  of  recentness. 

Still  stronger  objections  may  be  urged  against  the 
division  of  cases  into  curable  and  incurable,  because, 
when  not  determined  by  the  duration  of  the  disorder,  it 
is  chiefly  by  considerations  that  are  purely  matters  of 
opinion. 

The  usual  method  of  comparing  the  number  of  recov- 
eries with  that  of  the  admissions  or  discharges  presents 
a  very  unreliable  indication  of  the  curability  of  insanity, 
or  even  of  the  relative  success  of  different  establish- 
ments. When  we  consider  how  large  a  portion  of  our 
discharges  originate  in  the  impatience,  or  poverty,  or 
nameless  caprice  of  friends,  or  any  other  cause  than  the 
admitted  incurability  of  the  disease,  it  must  be  obvious 
that  the  number  of  recoveries  can  have  no  necessary 
relation  to  that  of  the  discharges,  nor  to  that  of  the  admis- 
sions, so  long  as  the  latter  are  consequent  upon  the  dis- 
charges. What  the  number  of  recoveries  does  indicate 
very  strongly  is  the  amount  of  perseverance  and  pecu- 
niary ability  exhibited  by  the  friends  and  guardians  of 
the  patients;  and  any  degree  of  merit  which  may  accrue 
from  the  number  of  recoveries  must  be  shared  by  the 
institution  with  the  community  itself. 

For  the  same  reason  the  proportion  of  recoveries  re- 
ported by  our  hospitals  cannot  be  regarded  as  a  satis- 
factory test  of  the  curability  of  insanity.  Every  case 
submitted  to  the  treatment  of  an  asylum  may  be  consid- 


80  STATISTICS   OF   INSANITY. 

ered  in  the  light  of  an  experiment  upon  the  curability 
of  the  disease.  If  removed  before  the  experiment  has 
been  fairly  tried,  the  result  proves  nothing.  How  many 
of  these  abortive  experiments  are  annually  tried  in  our 
hospitals,  we  all  know  to  our  sorrow.  If,  according  to 
the  opinion  of  Esquirol,  in  which  he  is  supported  by  Mr. 
Samuel  Tuke,  who  had  peculiar  facilities  for  forming  an 
opinion  on  this  point,  the  average  duration  of  an  attack 
of  insanity  is  one  year,  it  follows  that  in  a  certain  num- 
ber of  cases  it  must  exceed  a  year.  Esquirol  states  that 
of  the  twelve  hundred  and  thirty-three  recoveries  that 
occurred  in  a  certain  number  of  cases  submitted  to 
treatment,  more  than  half  of  them  were  subsequent  to 
the  first  year.  If  any  confidence  can  be  placed  in  this 
result  as  the  expression  of  a  general  truth,  it  follows 
that  any  patient,  not  affected  with  a  bodily  disease,  who 
is  removed  after  only  a  year's  trial  of  hospital  treatment, 
cannot  be  considered  as  having  had  more  than  half  a  trial 
thereof.  Without  inquiring  how  many  of  the  recent 
cases  discharged  uncured  are  thus  prematurely  re- 
moved, there  are  enough,  we  all  know,  to  vitiate  any 
result  afforded  by  hospital  statistics  touching  the  cura- 
bility of  insanity.  One  step  towards  certainty  would  be 
taken,  if  it  were  always  shown  how  long  the  disease 
has  existed  in  this  class  of  cases,  and  how  long  they  had 
been  under  treatment ;  in  other  words,  how  many  had, 
and  how  many  had  not,  passed  beyond  the  reach  of  those 
restorative  influences  which  nature  or  art  may  be  capa- 
ble of  exerting.  I  am  not  aware  of  a  single  instance  of 
such  information  having  been  given. 

If  these  objections  to  the  present  method  of  determin- 
ing the  results  of  hospital  treatment  have  any  validity, 
we  should  expect  to  find  them  varying  from  one  another 
to  a  degree  that  cannot  be  explained  by  any  of  the  ordi- 


STATISTICS    OF  INSANITY.  81 

nary  causes  of  diversity.  That  such  is  actually  the  case, 
I  think  cannot  be  fairly  denied.  I  cannot  enter  into  a 
detailed  examination  of  these  results,  but  a  glance  at 
a  few  of  them  will  answer  our  purpose.  In  Dr.  Thur- 
nam's  book  is  a  table  showing  the  proportion  of  recov- 
eries to  admissions  in  cases  of  less  than  twelve  months' 
duration  in  eleven  different  establishments,  and  they 
range  from  about  49  to  82  in  the  100.  The  causes  of 
this  diversity  may  be  obvious  enough  in  some  instances, 
but  very  far  from  it  in  others.  How  can  we  account  for 
the  fact  that  in  the  State  Lunatic  Hospital  at  Worcester 
the  recoveries  in  the  above-named  class  of  cases  have 
reached  to  nearly  83  per  cent,  while  in  the  Retreat  at 
York,  England,  they  fall  short  of  62  ? 1 

Differences  equally  great  and  equally  unaccountable 
might  be  adduced  without  number,  but  this  is  sufficient 
for  the  purpose  of  illustration.  Even  if  they  could  be 
satisfactorily  explained,  if  we  could  be  made  quite  sure 
why  in  one  institution  the  proportion  of  recoveries  is 
ten  or  twenty  per  cent  greater  than  in  another,  this  very 
result  would  establish  the  existence  of  modifying  cir- 
cumstances that  would  deprive  our  statistics  of  every 
claim  to  accuracy.  But,  whether  explained  or  not,  I  see 
not  how  any  candid  mind  can  help  drawing  from  them 
the  conclusion,  that  the  curability  of  insanity  is  as  far 
from  being  settled  as  that  of  many  other  diseases  that 
have  been  scarcely  subjected  to  statistical  inquiries. 

The  number  of  deaths  always  appears  in  the  statistics 
of  a  hospital  for  the  insane.     Over  and  above  the  simple 

1  It  is  not  improbable  that  Dr.  Thurnam  took  his  figures  relating  to 
the  Worcester  Hospital  from  its  annual  reports,  without  noticing  that  the 
recoveries  are  compared  with  the  discharges.  On  comparing  the  recov- 
eries of  recent  cases  with  the  admissions  during  the  period  in  question, 
I  find  that  the  former  is  about  78  per  cent  of  the  latter. 

6 


82  STATISTICS    OF   INSANITY. 

fact  of  showing  what  has  become  of  the  patients,  it  is 
supposed  to  have  an  important  bearing  on  the  curability 
of  insanity  and  the  relative  curative  success  of  different 
institutions.  As  death  is  a  matter  of  fact  and  not  of 
opinion,  it  is  free  from  one  of  the  objections  that  lie 
against  recovery  as  an  object  of  statistical  inquiry ;  and 
this  seems  to  be  its  only  advantage.  When  we  en- 
deavor to  estimate  the  value  of  the  relative  number  of 
deaths,  as  an  indication  of  the  mortality  of  the  disease, 
we  are  embarrassed,  as  we  were  in  regard  to  recoveries, 
with  the  very  large  proportion  of  cases  annually  dis- 
charged from  our  hospitals  neither  recovered  nor  dead. 
They  cannot  be  left  out  of  the  account,  and  yet  they 
prove  nothing  whatever  as  to  the  issue  of  the  disease. 
The  only  perfect  experiment  on  this  point  would  be  to 
trace  a  considerable  number  of  cases  from  the  com- 
mencement of  the  attack  to  its  termination  in  recovery 
or  death.  This  would  indicate  precisely  the  numerical 
relation  of  these  two  events.  To  show  the  proportion 
of  deaths  to  the  admissions  or  discharges,  is  to  indicate 
nothing  in  relation  to  insanity,  beyond  the  two  naked 
facts,  that  a  certain  number  entered  or  left  the  insti- 
tution, and  a  certain  number  died.  The  absurdity  of 
connecting  together  such  incongruous  facts  as  the  deaths 
of  certain  persons  with  the  casual  residence  of  certain 
others  in  the  same  place  is  strongly  illustrated  by  the 
practical  result.  At  the  Salpetriere,  for  a  certain  term 
of  years,  the  deaths  were  equal  to  twenty-six  per  cent  of 
the  admissions,  while  in  many  American  institutions  the 
proportion,  up  to  the  last  year,  has  been  between  eight 
and  nine  per  cent.  Are  we  to  infer  from  this  fact,  that 
insanity  is  three  times  as  fatal  at  Paris  as  in  America, 
or  that  the  physicians  of  the  latter  establishments  have 
been  three  times  as  successful  as  those  of  the  former, 


STATISTICS    OF   INSANITY.  83 

in  rescuing  their  patients  from  the  jaws  of  the  fell  de- 
stroyer ?  If  the  facts  will  bear  neither  of  these  infer- 
ences, what  are  they  good  for? 

Mr.  Tuke,  in  his  admirable  introduction  to  Jacobi's 
work  on  the  construction  of  insane  hospitals,  very  prop- 
erly proposed  to  estimate  the  mortality  of  these  insti- 
tutions like  that  of  any  other  community ;  that  is,  by 
comparing  the  number  of  deaths  with  that  of  the  aver- 
age number  of  inmates.  The  event  of  death  is  thus 
regarded  in  the  light  of  an  incident  natural  to  all  man- 
kind, rather  than  as  the  termination  of  a  special  disease, 
and  therefore  not  so  much  indicative  of  the  fatality  of 
insanity  as  of  the  hygienic  merits  of  different  establish- 
ments. Even  considered  in  this  latter  point  of  view, 
great  caution  is  necessary  in  making  the  number  of 
deaths  the  basis  of  any  general  conclusions.  Local  cir- 
cumstances might  give  rise  to  considerable  differences 
in  the  rate  of  mortality,  independent  of  the  means  and 
appliances  devoted  to  the  cure  of  the  disease.  The 
remarks  already  made  in  reference  to  such  influences 
upon  the  number  of  recoveries  are  equally  applicable, 
mutatis  mutandis,  to  that  of  deaths,  and  need  not  be 
repeated. 

It  may  be  very  fairly  questioned,  too,  whether  the  num- 
ber of  deaths  indicates  the  mortality  of  insanity,  because 
many  of  them  are  caused  by  diseases  that  have  only  an 
accidental  connection  with  it.  The  tables  usually  printed 
in  hospital  reports,  of  the  causes  of  death  in  the  cases 
that  have  proved  fatal,  show — whether  correctly  or  not 
is  immaterial  to  the  present  point  —  that  insanity  itself 
destroys  but  few,  if  any,  of  its  subjects.  It  certainly 
is  not  very  clear  how  a  death  produced  by  diarrhoea,  or 
apoplexy,  can  have  any  bearing  upon  the  mortality  of 
another  and  very  different  disease.    Upon  the  only  ques- 


84  STATISTICS   OF   INSANITY. 

tion  that  concerns  us  in  this  connection,  viz.,  in  what 
proportion  of  cases  insanity  proves  fatal,  the  reports  of 
hospitals  fail  to  throw  much  light. 

In  American  hospitals  it  is  the  prevailing  practice  to 
state  the  causes  of  death  in  the  several  cases  in  which 
it  has  occurred.  What  object  is  supposed  to  be  obtained 
thereby  has  never,  to  my  knowledge,  been  very  clearly 
explained.  No  one,  I  apprehend,  will  venture  to  say 
that  much  light  has  been  thrown  on  the  pathological  phe- 
nomena of  insanity  by  these  tables  of  the  causes  of 
death.  The  vague,  loose,  and  indefinite  phraseology, 
the  heterogeneous  mixture  of  popular  and  technical  dis- 
tinctions, of  symptoms  and  specific  forms  of  disease,  by 
all  which  traits  the}'  are  too  often  disfigured,  might  be 
pardoned  in  the  report  of  a  superintendent  of  burial- 
grounds,  but  in  a  document  emanating  from  a  scientific 
man  for  scientific  purposes  they  excite  a  feeling  of 
amazement,  if  not  contempt.  If  these  tables  are  to  be 
considered  as  a  mature  and  deliberate  expression  of 
opinion,  and  not  merely  as  a  matter  of  form  drawn  up  in 
compliance  with  some  antiquated  rule,  they  indicate  a 
pathology  that  has  not  been  enlightened  by  dissection, 
and  ideas  of  causation  which  the  irreverent  world  might 
say  are  puerile. 

The  leading  fact  implied  by  these  tables  is,  that  the 
insane  mostly,  if  not  wholly,  are  finally  carried  off  by 
other  diseases  than  insanity  itself.  I  do  not  recollect 
to  have  ever  seen  insanity  or  mania  set  down  among  the 
causes  of  death,  although  one  may  find  almost  every 
other  form  of  disease.  Now  is  the  fact  here  implied 
true?  Are  we  prepared  to  promulgate  to  the  world, 
as  an  established  thing,  that  nobody  dies  of  insanity  ? 
On  the  contrary,  are  we  not  in  the  habit,  in  other  con- 
nections, of  speaking  of  insanity  as  a  serious  disease, 


STATISTICS    OF    INSANITY.  85 

and  one  that  is   more   or  less   fatal?     True,  an  insane 
person  may  be  attacked  by  dysentery,  or  small-pox,  and 
succumb  to  its  violence,  and  his  death  would  be  as  prop- 
erly attributed  to  such   attack  as  if  he  had  never  been 
insane.     The  presence  of  one  disease  does  not  necessa- 
rily preclude  the  occurrence  of  another ;  and,  if  death 
follows  the  supervention  of  the  latter,  their  respective 
agency  in  producing  this  result  is  a  question  to  be  set- 
tled.    In  the  larger  portion  of  cases  we  should  hesitate 
to  attribute   it   solely  to  one   of  them,  and  yet  this  is 
habitually  done  in  regard  to  the  deaths  of  the  insane.     I 
am  aware  that  in  our  hospital  reports  we  always  find 
some  deaths  attributed  to  "  disease  of  the  brain"  some 
to  "  inflammation   of  the  brain"  and   others   to  u  acute 
cerebral  disease ,"  by  all  which  terms  it  is  probably  meant, 
that  the  patients  sunk  under  the  violence  of  the  mania- 
cal attack.     Then  why  not  say  so?     As  these  terms  are 
often   used    to    designate   other  affections  than   proper 
insanity,  I  see  no  propriety  in  applying  them  to  a  form 
of   disease   characterized  by  very  different   conditions, 
especially  as   the  term    acute  mania  and  its  congeners 
have  long  been  sanctioned  by  nosologists,  and  convey 
an  exact,  well-understood  idea.     If  there  were  any  pre- 
tension to  consistenc}7  in  the  matter,  it  might  be  asked 
why,  in  the  same  table,  some  deaths  are  attributed  to 
general  paralysis,   which    is    a  specific  form  of  mental 
disease,  and  not  to  disease  of  the  brain,  &c,  which  may 
be  as  properly  applied  to  it  as  to  mania. 

These  tables  indicate  great  confusion  of  ideas,  evi- 
dently arising  from  the  want  of  well  settled,  well  under- 
stood views  of  pathology.  Some  of  the  diseases  set 
down  in  them  as  causes  of  death  were  undoubtedly  su- 
perinduced upon  the  original  disease,  with  which  they 
had  no  necessary  connection,  and  produced  death  solely 


86  STATISTICS    OF   INSANITY. 

by  their  own  means  ;  while  many  others  are  just  as 
clearly  the  natural  and  ordinary  results  or  accompani- 
ments of  insanity,  and  only  mark  the  last  stage  of  its 
progress  toward  the  final  dissolution  of  its  victim.  Of 
the  latter  none  makes  so  much  of  a  figure  in  our  hos- 
pital reports  as  marasmus.  In  acute  mania  and  the 
latter  stages  of  chronic  mania,  nothing  is  more  common 
than  more  or  less  emaciation  of  the  body  ;  and  it  probably 
has  the  same  pathological  relation  to  the  original  disease 
that  it  has  to  phthisis  or  fever  when  it  accompanies  them. 
It  is  one  link  in  the  chain  of  morbid  processes  which 
originate  in  the  brain,  and  to  call  it  the  cause  of  death 
would  be  like  saying  that  the  victim  of  consumption 
dies,  not  by  consumption,  but  by  diarrhoea  which  oc- 
curred a  few  days  before  death.  Exhaustion,  too,  is  a 
prolific  cause  of  death  in  our  hospital  reports.  To  call 
exhaustion  a  disease,  when,  in  so  far  as  its  phenomena 
meet  our  observation,  it  is  merely  a  loss  of  muscular 
power  incident  upon  a  specific  disease,  is  either  to  use 
language  in  a  sense  very  different  from  its  ordinary 
acceptation,  or  to  thoroughly  confound  causes  and  effects 
with  an  utter  disregard  of  every  principle  of  sound 
pathology.  All  acute  diseases  of  any  duration  induce  an 
asthenic  condition,  but  we  are  not  in  the  habit  of  saying 
that  patients  die  for  lack  of  strength  any  more  than 
that  they  die  for  want  of  breath.  Exhaustion  is,  prob- 
ably, a  convertible  term  with  those  above-mentioned, 
"  acute  cerebral  disease,11  "  inflammation  of  the  brain11 
&c,  and  indicates  the  same  pathological  condition.  The 
term  acute  mania  expresses  that  condition  as  definitely 
as  possible ;  and  why  not  use  it,  instead  of  resorting  to 
a  kind  of  innuendo  which  is  misplaced  here,  however 
excusable  it  might  have  been  in  the  worthy  Irishman 
who,  in  speaking  of  a  brother  that  came   to  a  sudden 


STATISTICS   OF   INSANITY.  8T 

end  in  an  elevated  position,  softened  down  the  stern 
catastrophe,  by  saying  that  he  died  of  a  great  rush  of 
blood  to  the  head  ?  In  this  connection  it  might  also  be 
asked  whether  such  terms  as  dysenteric  fever,  gastric 
fever,  congestive  fever,  have  a  signification  sufficiently 
limited  and  precise  for  statistical  purposes.  If  not,  then 
what  becomes  of  the  utility  of  such  statistics  ? 

Perhaps  no  circumstance  of  insanity  has  excited  so 
much  speculation,  both  in  the  profession  and  out  of  it, 
as  its  causes  ;  and  in  every  hospital  report  a  prominent 
place  is  allotted  to  them.  Inquiries  that  have  fur  their 
object  to  cast  some  light  on  the  origin  of  such  an  ap- 
palling malady  yield  to  no  other  in  point  of  interest  and 
importance.  It  would  not  be  the  first  time,  however,  if 
the  very  importance  of  the  subject  have  raised  a  deter- 
mination to  arrive  at  results  of  some  kind,  but  not  a 
corresponding  anxiety  for  their  soundness.  It  would 
not  be  the  first  time,  if  an  imposing  array  of  names  and 
phrases  were  mistaken  by  their  authors  for  substantial 
contributions  to  knowledge  ;  nor  would  it  be  strange  if 
others  were  led  to  participate  in  the  pleasing  delusion. 
I  fear  that  the  careful  inquirer  will  seldom  rise  from  the 
examination  of  these  tables,  with  the  conviction  that 
they  have  thrown  much  light  on  the  origin  of  insanity. 
Perhaps  no  point  within  the  range  of  our  professional 
studies  demands  a  clearer  insight  into  the  laws  both  of 
psychology  and  pathology  than  the  successful  elucida- 
tion of  the  causes  which  lead  the  mind  astray  from  the 
line  of  healthy  action.  Here,  if  anywhere,  it  will  appear 
whether  our  studies  have  led  us  to  a  higher  philosophy 
than  that  which  consists  in  repeating  catch-words  and 
echoing  the  popular  voice.  Nowhere  else  in  our  depart- 
ment of  the  healing  art  is  a  clear  and  able  head  more 
needed  to  overthrow  the  masses  of  error  and  prejudice 


88  STATISTICS    OF   INSANITY. 

that  have  been  accumulating  for  ages,  and,  guided  by 
the  light  of  a  strictly  inductive  philosophy,  to  place  us 
in  the  path  of  successful  investigation. 

Without  pressing  the  radical  objection  that  might 
be  urged  against  the  attempts  that  appear  in  our  hos- 
pital reports,  to  penetrate  into  the  causes  of  insanity,  I 
will  only  advert  to  a  few  of  their  defects  which  appear 
on  the  surface,  and  equally  impair  their  statistical  value. 
Their  total  want  of  precision  and  uniformity  in  the  use 
of  language,  now  justly  deemed  essential  in  any  scientific 
inquiry  really  worthy  of  the  name,  is  not  one  of  the 
least  serious  of  these  defects.  The  most  remarkable 
step  ever  made  in  the  pursuit  of  natural  science  —  one 
which  marks  the  transition  from  idle  and  anile  specula- 
tion on  the  one  hand,  to  sure  and  valuable  acquisitions 
on  the  other  —  was  the  adoption  of  a  language  the  terms 
of  which  are  so  precise  and  well  defined  as  to  convey 
the  same  idea  to  every  mind,  in  every  time  and  every 
land.  In  the  department  of  inquiry  we  are  now  consider- 
ing, as  well  as  every  other  belonging  to  natural  science, 
such  a  nomenclature  is  equally  essential  to  progress. 
To  suppose  it  may  be  advanced  by  the  use  of  ordinary 
forms  of  speech,  would  be  no  wiser  than  to  attempt  to 
gain  the  most  perfect  mastery  over  the  elements  by 
such  means  as  were  furnished  by  the  primitive  inven- 
tions of  Watt  and  Fulton.  How  little  such  views  haver 
entered  into  the  tables  of  causes  which  appear  in  om* 
hospital  reports,  will  sufficiently  appear  from  a  few  illus- 
trations. In  one  and  the  same  table  are  cases  charged 
to  "  domestic  trouble,"  "  bad  conduct  of  children,"  "jeal- 
ousy," "  infidelity  of  wife,"  "  ill-treatment  of  parents  " 
and  "  abuse  of  husband."  Surely,  it  would  not  be  easy 
to  find  stronger  manifestations  of  "  domestic  trouble  " 
than    are    indicated    by  all  these   events ;   and  we  are 


STATISTICS    OF   INSANITY.  89 

therefore  obliged  to  conclude  that  the  term  "  domestic 
trouble,"  which  appears  to  have  given  rise  to  so  much 
insanity,  is  used  in  a  sense  very  different  from  the  ordi- 
nary, but  one  to  which  we  possess  no  clew.  In  another 
table  a  number  of  cases  are  charged  to  the  account  of 
"  disappointment,"  but  whether  they  were  disappointed 
in  love  or  politics,  in  the  struggle  for  honor  or  wealth, 
does  not  appear.  Another  gentleman  is  more  precise, 
and  subdivides  the  general  affection  into  "  disappointed 
love  "  and  "  disappointed  ambition."  Another  uses  all 
three  terms,  and  cases  are  referred  by  him  respec- 
tively to  "  disappointment,"  "  disappointed  affection," 
and  "  disappointed  ambition  ;  "  and  another  extends  the 
list  of  disappointments  by  adding  "  disappointed  expecta- 
tion." What  ideas  are  we  to  attach,  also,  to  such  vague 
phrases  as  "  mental  excitement,"  '*  anxiety,"  "  expos- 
ure," "  fright,"  and  a  host  of  others  too  numerous  to 
mention  ? 

Can  we  be  quite  sure,  too,  that  the  same  or  similar 
terms  used  to  designate  the  causes  of  insanity  mean 
precisely  the  same  thing  in  the  reports  of  different  insti- 
tutions ?  "  111  health  "  seems  to  be  a  prolific  source  of 
insanity.  If  this  term  were  designed  to  embrace  all  the 
physical  derangements  that  often  precede  the  outbreak  of 
insanity,  and  are  supposed  to  be  its  cause,  then  it  would 
convey  some  definite  idea  to  the  mind.  In  some  tables, 
perhaps,  this  may  be  its  meaning  ;  but  in  others  we  find 
it  side  by  side  with  "  fever,"  "nervous  debility,"  "  dys- 
pepsia," "  disease  of  the  liver,"  "  gout,"  "  rheumatism," 
"  phthisis,"  "  menorrhagia,"  "  amenorrhcea,"  and  conse- 
quently must  indicate  some  condition  of  the  system  not 
embraced  in  any  of  these  disorders.  But  what  is  it? 
The  reporter  may  understand  it  perfectly  well  ;  but  how 
are  others  to  know  his  meaning,  without  a  preliminary 


90  STATISTICS    OF   INSANITY. 

dissertation  on  the  use  of  terms,  which,  however  it  might 
help  the  reader  of  a  work  on  logic  or  philosophy,  would 
be  of  little  service  in  a  statistical  undertaking.  Many 
cases  are  also  referred  to  the  puerperal  condition.  That 
this  is  often  the  efficient  cause  of  insanity,  I  presume  no 
one  is  disposed  to  doubt ;  but,  until  this  condition  is  more 
accurately  defined,  this  general  truth  can  have  but  little 
statistical  value.  What  period  after  parturition  does  it 
cover  ?  the  few  weeks  immediately  following,  or  the 
whole  period  of  lactation  ?  Is  every  case  which  hap- 
pens within  the  allotted  period,  be  it  long  or  short,  to  be 
referred  to  the  same  origin  ?  and  if  not,  by  what  rule 
are  we  to  be  governed  in  making  the  distinction?  Until 
these  points  are  settled,  the  results  of  different  observers 
will  admit  of  no  comparison,  and  consequently  can  form 
the  ground  of  no  definite  conclusions.  The  same  objec- 
tion may  be  urged  against  some  other  items  usually 
found  in  the  tables  of  causes.  They  are  so  vague  that 
we  never  can  know  the  precise  meaning  attached  to 
them  by  different  observers. 

It  is  very  obvious  too  that  these  tables  often  reflect 
the  peculiar  views  of  their  respective  framers,  so  easy 
is  it  to  find  whatever  we  think  we  ought  to  find.  One 
gentleman,  for  instance,  attributes  one-tenth  of  his  cases 
to  intemperance,  while  another  is  not  quite  satisfied  that 
he  has  had  a  single  case  arising  from  that  cause.  One 
who,  for  some  reason  or  other,  has  been  strongly  im- 
pressed by  the  influence  exerted  on  the  female  brain  by 
those  physiological  changes  called  the  "  turn  of  life," 
regards  them  as  a  fruitful  source  of  mental  disease  ;  and 
in  his  table  of  causes  the  "  climacteric  period  "  is  made 
responsible  for  a  very  high  proportion.  One  attributes 
five  per  cent  of  his  cases  to  masturbation,  while  another 
whose    experience    is    confined     to    similar  cases    sets 


STATISTICS   OF   INSANITY.  91 

down  but  half  of  one  per  cent  to  this  practice.  One 
expresses  the  opinion  that  tobacco  gives  rise  to  much 
insanity,  but  provides  it  with  no  place  in  his  table  of 
causes.  Another  delivers  the  same  opinion  touching  the 
want  of  sleep,  but  also  fails  to  place  it  among  the 
causes. 

There  is  also  much  reason  to  believe  that  many  of  the 
emotions  and  incidents  that  are  set  down  as  causes  of 
insanity,  such  as  "  fear  of  poverty/'  "  religious  doubts," 
"  anxiety,"  &c,  would  often  be  more  justly  regarded  as 
its  effects.  They  are  the  first  symptoms  that  arrest  the 
attention ;  and,  by  means  of  that  common  disposition  to 
confound  the  post  hoc  with  the  propte?*  hoc,  they  are 
placed  in  the  relation  of  cause  to  the  subsequent  aberra- 
tions. In  a  multitude  of  cases  it  must  be  difficult,  with 
the  slender  means  in  our  possession,  to  decide  this 
point  with  the  slightest  approach  to  certainty. 

Were  the  objections  here  urged  against  these  tables 
of  causes  devoid  of  any  weight  whatever,  there  is  an- 
other undeniable  and  unremovable,  that  strikes  at  the 
very  root  of  their  supposed  value.  The  objection  al- 
leged against  the  event  of  recovery  as  an  object  of  sta- 
tistical record  —  that  it  is  more  a  matter  of  opinion  than 
of  positive  fact  —  lies  equally  against  the  causes  of  in- 
sanity. But  there  is  this  additional  one,  that  they  show 
not  even  the  opinions  of  the  observer,  but  of  other 
unskilful  and  irresponsible  persons.  Every  thing  that 
we  learn  on  this  subject  is  derived  from  the  friends  of 
the  patients,  and  even  if  they  abstain  —  as  they  gener- 
ally do  not  —  from  offering  their  own  particular  views, 
yet  the  facts  are  so  related  as  to  suggest  certain  infer- 
ences respecting  the  cause  of  the  disorder.  How  crude 
and  puerile  the  views  of  such  persons  often  are,  how 
partial  and  inaccurate  their  narratives  of  facts,  are  well 


92  STATISTICS    OF  INSANITY. 

enough  known  to  us  all.  It  might  seem,  at  first  thought, 
that  a  certain  series  of  occurrences,  which  required  only 
a  little  activity  of  attention  to  perceive,  might  be  clearly 
and  completely  related  by  any  tolerably  intelligent  per- 
son ;  but  we  know  by  the  most  abundant  experience  that 
few  are  able  to  describe  phenomena  that  lie  without  the 
range  of  their  ordinary  thoughts  and  pursuits.  To  see 
events  is  one  thing :  to  describe  them  is  another  and  a 
very  different  thing.  For  the  former  a  man  has  only 
to  keep  his  eyes  open  ;  the  latter  requires  an  orderly 
arrangement  of  the  thoughts,  a  skilful  use  of  language, 
and  some  previous  acquaintance  with  the  department  of 
knowledge  to  which  the  phenomena  in  question  belong. 
Of  the  persons  who  bring  patients  to  our  hospitals,  how 
seldom  does  one  possess  these  qualifications;  and  yet 
their  accounts  are  made  the  basis  of  all  our  conclusions 
respecting  the  causes  of  the  disease.  The  most  trust- 
worthy lay  particular  stress  on  such  events  and  inci- 
dents as,  in  their  opinion,  were  connected  with  the 
production  of  the  disease;  their  views,  of  course,  being 
governed  by  their  own  habits  of  thinking  and  feeling. 
A  hypothetical  case  will  better  convey  my  meaning.  A 
lady  about  the  "  turn  of  life  "  becomes  insane  and  is  sent 
to  an  asylum.  She  has  been  addicted  to  potations  some- 
what stronger  than  water,  and  moreover  has  borne  an 
active  part  in  the  religious  movements  of  the  day.  A 
friend  who  puts  his  faith  in  total  abstinence  does  not 
hesitate  to  attribute  the  disorder  to  her  indulgence  in 
drink,  and  pays  but  little  regard  to  any  other  feature 
in  the  case.  Another  of  a  cold  or  sceptical  turn  of 
mind,  who  has  been  strongly  impressed  with  the  evils 
of  religious  fanaticism,  dwells  chiefly  on  her  disposition 
to  plunge  into  the  excitement  of  religious  gatherings, 
and  here  finds  the  origin  of  her  disorder.     Her  physi- 


STATISTICS    OF   INSANITY.  93 

cian,  who  is  accustomed  to  meet  with  the  derangements 
incident  to  that  great  physiological  change  in  the  female 
system,  thinks  only  of  this  fact.  Now,  with  all  our  cau- 
tion, it  cannot  be  doubted  that  we  should  be  very  liable 
to  attribute  this  lady's  insanity  either  to  intemperance, 
religious  excitement,  or  the  climacteric  period,  accord- 
ing to  the  friend  from  whom  we  happened  to  obtain  her 
history.  I  do  not  mean,  of  course,  that  we  are  obliged 
to  coincide  with  the  patient's  friends  on  this  point,  for 
we  may  agree  with  them  as  much  or  as  little  as  we 
please,  but  that  we  are  obliged  to  form  our  opinions  on 
such  data  only  as  they  choose  to  present.  No  one  of  us 
certainly  would  believe  that  a  patient  had  been  bewitched 
because  his  friends  think  so ;  but  does  it  show  much 
deeper  wisdom  to  make  the  narratives  of  such  persons 
the  ground  of  any  opinions  whatever  ? 

There  is  a  show  of  precision  in  the  usual  tables  which, 
I  apprehend,  is  not  to  be  found  in  nature.  If  we  insist 
upon  evidence  really  deserving  the  name,  the  cases  will 
prove  exceedingly  few,  that  can  be  satisfactorily  traced 
to  any  particular,  single  cause.  The  history  of  cases 
generally  discloses  a  series  of  incidents,  each  of  which 
appears  to  have  had  some  share  in  producing  the  dis- 
ease. It  is  impossible  to  designate  any  one  of  tLiem  as 
the  efficient  cause,  or  to  say  that  any  particular  one  might 
have  been  absent  without  affecting  the  result.  I  cannot 
see  therefore  what  benefit  can  be  derived  from  affecting 
a  precision  which,  instead  of  casting  any  light  upon  the 
origin  of  the  disease,  only  conveys  to  the  unprofessional 
inquirer  wrong  impressions  respecting  a  matter  of  fact. 

It  has  become  a  frequent  though  not  a  general  prac- 
tice, in  reports  of  insane  hospitals,  to  classify  the  different 
forms  which  the  disease  has  presented,  for  the  purpose, 
I  presume,  of    showing   their   comparative    curability. 


94  STATISTICS    OF   INSANITY. 

Every  superintendent  adopts  that  classification  which 
seems  good  in  his  own  eyes,  and  consequently  no  two 
of  them  are  alike.  For  instance,  in  the  reports  of  one 
institution  the  disorder  is  divided  into  eight  classes ; 
in  another,  it  is  divided  into  five  ;  in  another,  twelve  ;  in 
another,  sixteen.  If  there  were  any  foundation  in  nature 
for  all  or  any  of  these  classes,  then  their  respective  cura- 
bility would  be  an  interesting  object  of  inquiry.  But 
however  convenient  such  distinctions  may  be  sometimes, 
for  indicating  the  general  features  of  the  case,  they  are 
not  sufficiently  well  defined  and  understood  to  form  the 
basis  of  a  scientific  classification.  At  any  rate,  until 
some  particular  system  is  generally  adopted  with  its 
classes  and  orders  accurately  defined  and  distinguished, 
I  do  not  see  how  we  can  be  benefited  by  considering  the 
disease  in  so  many  subdivided  forms.  No  one,  I  appre- 
hend, can  be  sure  that  by  monomania,  melancholia,  moral 
insanity,  and  many  other  terms  that  are  used  to  desig- 
nate different  forms  of  mental  derangement,  he  under- 
stands precisely  what  his  neighbor  does,  and  that  there 
would  be  no  discrepancy  between  them  in  referring  the 
same  cases  to  their  respective  classes.  Indeed  it  could 
hardly  be  otherwise ;  for  these  terms  have  never  been 
clearly  defined  by  any  well-recognized  authority,  and 
consequently,  without  some  preliminary  explanations,  can 
convey  no  accurate  ideas  to  others. 

Even  without  these  objections,  there  is  another  equally 
fatal  to  such  attempts  at  classification,  and  that  is  the  fact 
that  in  a  large  proportion  of  cases  the  form  of  the  dis- 
ease changes  in  the  course  of  its  progress.  The  same 
case,  at  different  periods,  may  present  the  aspect  of 
melancholia,  monomania,  and  dementia.  To  which  of 
them  is  it  to  be  referred? 

I  must  terminate  this  examination  of  hospital  statis- 


STATISTICS    OF   INSANITY.  95 

tics  without  suggesting  any  better  methods  of  report- 
ing our  results.  In  so  doing,  I  shall,  no  doubt,  subject 
myself  to  the  usual  reproach  cast  upon  reformers,  of 
making  war  upon  a  fancied  evil,  without  offering  any 
thing  better  in  its  place.  This  reproach  I  shall  not 
trouble  myself  to  repel,  content  if  I  have  succeeded  in 
placing  in  a  stronger  light  difficulties  and  defects  that 
have  been  more  or  less  apparent  to  us  all. 

Before  leaving  the  subject,  however,  it  may  be  well 
to  notice  the  usual  reply  to  objections  against  the  value 
of  the  kind  of  statistics  we  have  been  considering.  The 
reply  is,  that  we  do  not  pretend  to  obtain  the  exact  truth, 
but  only  an  approximation  to  it ;  and  it  is  implied  by  the 
use  of  this  term  that  the  approach  is  sufficiently  near 
for  any  practical  purpose.  This  is  one  of  those  fallacies 
which  Lord  Bacon  has  classed  among  the  idols  of  the 
forum,  whereby  words  and  phrases  that  have  a  technical 
meaning  are  transferred  to  some  other  branch  of  in- 
quiry, carrying  with  them  by  implication  all  their  origi- 
nal minuteness  and  accuracy  of  signification.  In  pure 
mathematics  we  are  seldom  able  to  arrive  at  the  exact 
truth.  We  can  only  draw  near,  or  approximate  to  it,  as 
it  is  called  ;  but  so  close  may  this  approach  be  made,  that 
the  deficiency  occasions  no  practical  inconvenience.  The 
term  is  applied  exclusively,  by  prescriptive  usage,  to 
that  kind  of  inaccuracy  which  arises  from  the  imper- 
fections of  mathematical  analysis,  never  to  such  as  arises 
from  error  of  the  senses  or  of  instruments.  We  can 
never  obtain  the  precise  number  which  multiplied  by 
itself  will  produce  50,  but  we  can  arrive  as  near  to  it 
as  we  please.  On  the  other  hand,  in  natural  history,  for 
instance,  living  beings  are  arranged  into  groups  that 
are  distinguished  by  certain  characters,  but  not  so  ex- 
actly as  to  prevent  all  embarrassment  in  referring  indi- 


96  STATISTICS    OF   INSANITY. 

viduals  to  their  respective  groups.  In  the  former 
illustration,  the  deficiency  can  be  bouDded  by  appre- 
ciable limits  :  it  can  scarcely  be  discerned  without  the 
magnifying  aid  of  numbers,  and  presents  no  obstacle  to 
the  attainment  of  any  legitimate  object.  In  the  latter, 
we  can  have  but  an  indefinite  notion  of  its  extent.  It  is 
regarded  as  a  serious  drawback  on  the  certainty  of  our 
results,  and  the  worth  and  dignity  of  the  science  are 
deeply  concerned  in  diminishing  the  evil.  It  is  obvious, 
therefore,  that  we  have  no  right  to  call  our  statistical 
shortcomings  approximations  to  the  truth,  inasmuch  as 
they  arise  from  our  own  imperfections  and  errors.  But 
without  insisting  on  the  prescriptive  use  of  the  term,  I 
might  ask  by  what  possible  latitude  of  meaning  it  can 
be  applied  to  the  statistical  results  of  our  hospitals  for 
the  insane.  Is  any  one  prepared  to  say,  for  instance, 
that  they  have  shown  the  curability  of  recent  cases  with 
a  degree  of  exactness  that  can  be  called,  in  any  sense 
of  the  term,  an  approximation  to  the  truth  ?  Some 
would  fix  it  at  90  per  cent;  others  at  70;  while  an 
earnest  advocate  might  be  found  for  every  intermediate 
number.  And  just  so  with  the  mortality  of  recent  cases. 
We  are  equally  far  from  any  result  that  can  chal- 
lenge general  confidence.  Is  it  5  per  cent,  or  10,  or  15, 
or  20  ?  Good  authority  might  be  adduced  for  any  of 
these  estimates.  Surely  we  cannot  have  the  boldness 
to  call  results  like  these  approximations  to  the  truth? 
That  they  form  very  suitable  data  for  an  opinion,  I 
admit ;  but  a  candid  consideration  of  the  subject  must 
convince  us,  that  such  an  opinion  is  no  more  likely  to 
be  exact  than  a  shrewd  conjecture  founded  upon  one's 
general  impressions  of  his  own  experience. 


MORAL   INSANITY. 


[In  the  following  pages,  the  writer  has  endeavored  to  meet  the 
current  objections  to  the  doctrine  of  moral  insanity.  Like  most  sub- 
jects on  which  opinions  are  apt  to  be  formed  under  the  pressure  of 
strong  feeling,  it  has  been  greatly  misapprehended,  and  its  advocates 
subjected  to  derision  and  obloquy.  Of  these  objections,  one  of  the 
most  prominent  is  that  it  conflicts  with  the  most  approved  theories  of 
the  mental  constitution,  in  which  the  essential  unity  of  the  mind  is 
recognized.  That  this  objection  should  have  found  its  strongest  sup- 
port among  a  people  who  have  derived  their  metaphysics  from  such 
writers  as  Reid  and  Stewart,  and  consequently  are  well  prepared,  by  a 
distinct  recognition  of  the  sentiments  and  emotions  as  active  powers 
coexistent  with  the  pure  reason,  to  admit  the  possibility  of  their  being 
controlled  or  modified  by  disease,  is  somewhat  surprising.  A  priori, 
it  would  be  difficult,  certainly,  to  conceive  why  a  sentiment  or  pro- 
pensity is  not  as  likely  to  be  thus  affected  as  the  intellect.  The 
rightful  influence  of  the  psychological  teaching  most  in  vogue  among 
us  has  been  counteracted,  very  probably,  more  by  the  misplaced  use 
of  a  homely  phrase  than  by  any  profound  objection.  To  the  common 
understanding,  it  is  no  better  than  a  contradiction  in  terms  to  say 
that  a  man  has  lost  his  reason  —  the  old  English  equivalent  of  in- 
sanity—  while  his  reason  is  confessedly  untouched.  This  play  upon 
words  has  stood,  unquestionably,  in  the  place  of  facts  and  arguments, 
and  still  serves  the  opponents  of  moral  insanity,  as  their  great  piece 
of  resistance. 

By  some,  the  doctrine  that  the  sentiments  and  propensities  may  be 
separately  disordered  is  supposed  to  depend  on  the  phrenological 
division  of  the  brain  into  independent  organs,  and  consequently  can 
receive  no  countenance  from  the  disbelievers  of  that  system.  If  this 
were  the  only  ground  of  our  faith,  the  objection  would  be  conclusive  ; 
but  as  we  rely  solely  on  the  results  of  observation,  we  need  not 

7 


98  MORAL   INSANITY. 

appeal  to  the  anatomical  arrangements  of  the  brain.  And  yet  they 
furnish  a  strong  argument  in  favor  of  this  view.  Whether  the  brain 
consists  of  a  congeries  of  organs,  according  to  phrenology,  or  not, 
we  know  that  it  is  necessary  to  the  manifestation  of  the  mental  phe- 
nomena. As  this  is  admitted  by  the  firmest  believer  in  the  unity  of  the 
mind,  he  has  only  to  extend  very  slightly  the  sweep  of  the  propo- 
sition, to  conclude  that  a  diversity  of  organic  structure  may  be  neces- 
sary to  a  diversity  of  manifestation  ;  or,  in  other  words,  that  different 
portions  of  the  brain  may  be  necessary  to  the  manifestation  of  differ- 
ent faculties  or  qualities  of  mind. 

The  other  objection  oftenest  urged  against  the  doctrine  of  moral 
insanity  is  the  difficulty  of  distinguishing  it  from  moral  depravity,  in 
consequence  of  which  the  boundary  between  vice  and  disease  is  liable 
to  be  effaced.  This  difficulty  cannot  be  ignored  ;  but,  if  it  is  not  always 
overcome  in  practice,  the  fact  may  usually  be  attributed  rather  to  the 
lack  of  suitable  opportunities  of  investigation  than  to  the  obscurity  of 
the  subject  itself.  It  is  certainly  not  a  very  philosophical  proceeding 
to  ignore  a  fact  merely  because  it  is  liable  to  be  mistaken  for  some 
other  fact.  In  moral  insanity,  sufficient  opportunity  only  is  needed 
to  discover  the  element  of  derangement,  disorder,  change ;  while 
simple  depravity  seldom  fails  to  make  itself  known  by  its  ordinary 
characters.  If  men  are  sometimes  unable  or  unwilling  to  see  the 
difference,  and  thus  mistake  the  former  for  the  latter,  it  is  unfortu- 
nate for  them,  no  doubt,  but  the  fact  cannot  weaken  the  doctrine  of 
moral  insanity.] 

Insanity,  in  the*  popular  apprehension,  is  comprised 
under  two  different  forms :  one  of  them  characterized 
by  incoherence,  noise,  violence,  or  what  is  denominated 
raving  ;  the  other,  by  delusions  more  or  less  circum- 
scribed, accompanied  with  tranquillity  and  some  degree 
of  reason.  Until  within  a  period  comparatively  recent, 
no  other  form  of  insanity  was  clearly  recognized,  even 
by  medical  men  ;  every  other  mental  disorder  not 
obviously  embraced  in  one  or  the  other  of  these  being 
regarded,  perhaps,  as  hypochondria,  hysteria,  eccen- 
tricity, or  malice  prepense,  —  any  thing,  in  short,  rather 
than  proper  insanity.     In  the  progress  of  science,  the 


MORAL   IXSAXITY.  99 

effect  of  which  always  is  to  reveal  analogies  and  dis- 
tinctions where  none  were  supposed  to  exist,  it  began 
to  be  suspected  that,  besides  the  mental  affections  ref- 
erable to  the  two  general  forms  above  mentioned,  there 
are  others  dependent  on  the  same  essential  condi- 
tion*, and  therefore  to  be  regarded  as  manifestations 
of  genuine  insanity.  Soon  after  the  disease  began  to 
be  studied  by  the  methods  and  in  the  spirit  of  modern 
science,  the  fact  was  observed  that  many  of  the  inmates 
of  hospitals  for  the  insane  exhibit  no  obvious  intellectual 
aberration  or  impairment.  Pinel,  who  entered  upon  his 
labors  in  this  department  of  the  healing  art  with  the 
current  notions  of  the  time,-  was  much  surprised,  he 
says,  to  find  many  patients  in  the  Bicetre  who  presented 
no  lesion  of  the  understanding,  but  seemed  to  be  under 
the  dominion  of  an  instinct  of  fury,  as  if  the  affective 
faculties  were  alone  disordered.  Farther  observations 
by  others  once  put  on  the  track  of  discovery  made 
known  the  existence  of  still  other  forms  of  moral  or 
affective  disorder  unconnected  with  lesion  of  the  under- 
standing ;  and  thus  at  last  it  has  become  the  prevailing 
belief,  among  men  of  distinguished  name  in  this  depart- 
ment of  medical  science,  that  the  moral  faculties  may  be 
deranged  while  the  intellectual  remain  apparently  in 
their  normal  condition.  Of  late  years  a  dissentient 
voice  has  occasionally  been  heard  from  the  bench,  the 
bar,  the  medical  profession  at  large,  and  even  from  those 
who  may  claim  some  special  knowledge  of  insanity  and 
the  insane.  In  regard  to  what  might  seem  to  be  a  plain 
statement  of  fact,  easily  proved  or  disproved  by  actual 
observation,  it  is  a  little  surprising  that  there  should  be 
any  room  for  difference  of  opinion  among  men  who  have 
had  abundant  opportunities  for  observing  the  disease. 
Such,  however,  is  the  case.     Some  of  those  most  capable, 


100  MORAL   INSANITY. 

it  might  be  supposed,  of  appreciating  the  labors  of  Pinel, 
Esquirol,  Marc,  Georget,  Combe,  Conolly,  Prichard,  Win- 
slow,  Bucknill,  and  Guislain,  do  not  hesitate  to  hold  up 
these  men  as  believers  in  a  doctrine  destitute  of  founda- 
tion and  dangerous  to  society. 

I  propose  now  to  examine,  with  some  particularity, 
the  principal  objections  against  the  doctrine  of  moral 
insanity,  and  among  them  some  that  derive  their  im- 
portance more  from  the  position  of  those  who  offer  them 
than  from  any  foundation  they  may  have  in  actual  fact. 

That  an  abnormal  condition  of  the  moral  powers  is  a 
frequent  manifestation  of  insanity,  is  now  one  of  those 
well-settled  facts  that  nobody  thinks  of  questioning.  It 
may  be  a  simple  perversion  of  some  sentiment  or  pro- 
pensity, or  a  morbid  irritability  of  the  affective  powers, 
under  certain  causes  of  excitement.  It  may  be  a  loss 
of  those  fine  sensibilities  which  make  the  family  rela- 
tions a  source  of  active  interest  and  self-sacrifice,  or  it 
may  be  a  feeling  of  hatred  and  hostility  as  bitter  as 
it  is  unfounded.  It  may  consist  of  some  moral  obliq- 
uity which  is  limited  to  a  narrow  range  of  persons  or 
things,  or  it  may  produce  a  complete  inversion  of  all  the 
ordinary  relations  of  good  and  evil.  It  may  be  hardly 
discernible  under  the  greater  prominence  of  the  intel- 
lectual disorder,  or  it  may  be  the  most  conspicuous 
element  of  the  mental  disturbance. 

Thus  far  there  is  no  diversity  of  opinion.  So  much 
may  be  considered  as  settled.  We  advance  one  step 
farther,  and  affirm  that,  for  any  thing  that  can  be  dis- 
covered to  the  contrary,  the  moral  disorder  may  some- 
times exist  unaccompanied  by  intellectual  disorder ;  and 
in  proof  thereof  we  produce  a  multitude  of  cases  exhibit- 
ing this  condition.  Here  our  opponents  join  issue  with 
us,  and  endeavor  to  maintain  their  position,  not  by  means 


MORAL   INSANITY.  101 

of  cases,  of  course,  —  for  those  could  hardly  prove  a  neg- 
ative,—  but  by  metaphysical  arguments,  by  objections  to 
the  fidelity  of  the  observations,  by  presenting  startling 
consequences,  and  too  often  for  the  credit  of  their  cause 
by  sneers  and  gibes.  We  are  called  visionary  and  crotch- 
ety, and  the  prejudices  of  all  those  worthy  people  who 
cling  to  the  past  solely  because  it  is  old  are  invoked 
against  us  for  wishing  to  pull  down  all  the  time-honored 
barriers  against  crime  and  immorality. 

In  the  first  place,  supposing  the  intellect  to  remain 
unimpaired,  it  is  declared  by  our  opponents  that  the 
mental  obliquities  which. are  attributed  to  insanity  may 
be  controlled,  and  therefore  that  the  individual  can  claim 
no  exemption  from  the  ordinary  measure  of  responsibil- 
ity for  his  acts.  This  assertion,  —  and  it  is  nothing  but 
assertion,  —  it  will  be  observed,  is  a  sort  of  begging  of 
the  question ;  and  therefore  it  will  be  sufficient  to  re- 
affirm the -position  we  hold  on  this  point.  So  long  as  the 
moral  sentiments  remain  in  their  normal  condition,  the 
power  to  control  their  manifestations  is  fully  admitted. 
When,  however,  they  become  diseased,  the  normal  rela- 
tion between  them  and  the  intellect  is  destroyed,  and 
the  latter  is  unable  to  perform  its  rightful  office.  Its 
own  power  is  not  diminished,  but  that  of  the  moral  senti- 
ments is  inordinately  increased  by  the  intrusion  of  a 
foreign  element.  It  is  a  matter  of  relative,  not  absolute, 
power  ;  and  it  is  immaterial  whether  the  derangement  of 
the  ordinary  relation  is  in  the  one  or  the  other.  The 
force  of  these  morbid  impulses  cannot  be  resisted,  be- 
cause it  is  greater  than  that  which  the  intellect  was 
designed,  in  the  normal  constitution  of  things,xto  con- 
trol. The  fact  is  no  more  anomalous  than  that  of  the 
marvellous  development  of  muscular  power  in  high 
maniacal  excitement,  which  defies  all  ordinary  means  of 


102  MORAL   INSANITY. 

restraint.  It  seems  hardly  necessary  to  prove,  to  one 
who  has  taken  the  first  lesson  in  psychology,  whether 
normal  or  abnormal,  that  the  affective  and  the  intellectual 
powers  work  together,  each  in  their  proper  sphere,  in 
determining  the  thoughts,  feelings,  and  movements  of  the 
individual,  and  that  the  absence  of  one  or  the  other  would 
produce  an  imperfect  and  disjointed  result.  It  is  but  a 
plain  corollary  of  this  position,  that  a  morbid  condition 
of  one  or  the  other  must  produce  a  similar  effect.  In 
many  of  the  cases  where  the  person  is  impelled  by  an 
irresistible  impulse  to  commit  some  criminal  act,  it  is 
stated  that  the  feeling  was  contemplated  with  horror, 
and  successfully  resisted,  until  at  last,  having  steadily 
increased  in  strength,  it  bore  down  all  opposition.  And 
why  this  deplorable  result?  Not  because  the  intellect 
sees  the  act  in  a  different  light,  and  willingly  gratifies 
the  desire  of  the  heart,  but  because  the  control  which, 
in  the  healthy  condition,  it  exercises  over  the  affective 
movements,  is  completely  overborne  by  the  superior 
energy  derived  from  disease.  To  see  any  matter  of 
blame  in  such  a  process  is  quite  beyond  our  ability. 
The  individual  is  entitled  to  commendation  rather  than 
blame  for  perseverance  in  resisting  so  long.  This 
relation  of  independence  between  the  two  elements  is 
not  unfrequently  observed  in  other  forms  of  insanity. 
Patients  with  considerable  delusions  may  recognize,  and 
perhaps  deplore,  the  mischief  they  commit.  They  admit 
that  in  striking  or  teasing  others,  in  stealing  or  destroy- 
ing property,  they  did  what  they  knew  to  be  wrong  and 
contrary  to  rule.  How  often  do  we  see  a  suicidal  pa- 
tient admitting  that  his  attempts  upon  his  life  were 
wrong,  in  the  sight  of  God  and  man ;  that  he  ought  not 
to  have  made  them,  but  something  urged  him  on  ;  that 
he  is  glad  they  proved  unsuccessful,  —  and  yet  on  the 


MORAL   INSANITY.  103 

next  opportunity  renewing  them  !  Do  we  regard  such 
a  person,  when  he  succeeds,  as  a  felon,  confiscate  his 
property  and  bury  his  body  at  a  road-crossing?  Our 
ancestors  did  this  ;  but  we  more  properly,  distinguishing 
clearly  the  moral  from  the  intellectual  elements  of  our 
nature,  regard  him  as  the  victim  of  disease,  and  give 
him  a  Christian  burial.  It  ought  not,  therefore,  to  be 
considered  as  an  anomalous  fact,  that  they  whose  intel- 
lect is  not  obviously  disturbed  should  be  conscious  of 
and  deplore  the  true  moral  quality  of  their  criminal  acts, 
without  being  able  to  refrain  from  committing  them. 
These,  then,  are  the  facts  of  our  case  :  and  no  objection 
to  the  doctrine  can  be  valid  which  ignores  any  one  of 
them.  In  this  doctrine  of  irresistible  impulse  we  see 
nothing  inconsistent  with  our  knowledge  of  mental  dis- 
ease, or  opposed  to  any  true  philosophy  of  the  human 
mind. 

Others  endeavor  to  reconcile  the  absence  of  intellect- 
ual derangement  with  the  irresponsibility  which  they 
are  willing  to  admit,  by  the  hypothesis  that  at  the  mo- 
ment of  the  commission  of  the  criminal  act  —  in  the 
height  of  the  raptus  maniacus  —  the  intellect  is  prac- 
tically obliterated,  though  immediately  before  and  after 
it  seemed  to  manifest  its  usual  consciousness  and  power. 
We  might  admit  the  fact  without  abandoning,  in  the 
slightest  degree,  the  doctrine  of  moral  insanity.  The 
point  here  made  seems  to  be,  at  best,  but  a  metaphys- 
ical subtlety,  and  the  doctrine  implied  in  it  one  of  no 
very  recent  origin.  The  exact  condition  of  the  intellect, 
in  these  cases,  at  the  moment  of  the  criminal  act,  is 
something  utterly  beyond  our  reach,  and  unnecessary  in 
fact  for  any  judicial  purpose.  A  disease  is  known  to 
exist,  —  a  morbid  impulse  to  commit  some  crime.  The 
patient  is  conscious  of  its  existence,  knows  it  is  wrong, 


104  MORAL  INSANITY. 

and  resists  its  gratification.  At  last  all  resistance  is 
overborne,  and  the  deed  is  done.  Certainly,  it  is  more 
consistent  with  all  our  knowledge  of  diseased  action  to 
suppose  that  the  morbid  condition  which  is  admitted  to 
exist  goes  on  increasing  in  intensity,  until  it  passes 
beyond  the  control  of  the  intellect,  than  that  just  at  this 
point  another  morbid  condition  suddenly  appears  and 
as  suddenly  disappears.  The  general  principle  derived 
from  this  objection  is,  that  although  moral  insanity  has 
a  real  existence  as  a  form  of  disease,  it  can  never  be- 
come the  parent  of  crime.  With  this  practical  reductlo 
ad  absurdum,  we  will  leave  an  objection  which  has  de- 
tained us  too  long. 

Others  avoid  these  difficulties  altogether,  by  recog- 
nizing no  form  of  insanity  exclusively  moral.  In  the 
cases  alleged  to  be  such,  they  contend  that  there  is 
more  or  less  intellectual  disorder,  though  we  fail  to  dis- 
cover it.  It  does  not  appear  whether  this  doctrine  is 
founded  on  the  possible  fact  that,  in  their  superior 
sagacity,  they  have  always  detected  intellectual  dis- 
order in  cases  usually  referred  to  this  form  of  disease  ; 
or  on  the  hypothesis  conveniently  assumed  for  the  pur- 
pose, that  insanity  necessarily  implies  intellectual  aber- 
ration, and  therefore  cannot  be  predicated  of  any  mental 
disorder  of  which  such  aberration  is  not  an  active  ele- 
ment. This  idea  seems  to  receive  some  support  from 
the  fact  that,  in  other  forms  of  mental  disease,  delusions, 
and  other  signs  of  a  disordered  understanding,  do  often 
remain  concealed  for  lack  of  a  suitable  opportunity  for 
their  display,  and  especially  from  the  fact  that  in  many 
cases  of  moral  insanity  intellectual  disorder,  though 
absent  in  the  early  stages  of  the  disease,  becomes  ap- 
parent enough  in  the  last.  Unquestionably,  it  is  a 
well  known  pathological  law,  that  serious  lesions  may 


MORAL  INSANITY.  105 

exist  in  the  bodily  organs  without  giving  any  indica- 
tions of  their  existence  ;  but  a  negative  fact  like  this 
furnishes  no  proof  of  a  certain  positive  fact.  If  it  gives 
no  indication  of  its  existence,  our  belief  in  it  must  be 
solely  a  matter  of  conjecture,  of  no  value  whatever 
except  as  a  guide  to  some  demonstrable  result.  Un- 
questionably, too,  certain  manifestations  of  mental  dis- 
ease sometimes  fail  to  occur,  only  because  the  fitting 
occasion  therefor  is  not  presented  ;  but  that  does  not 
help  the  matter  at  all,  because  in  these  cases  of  moral 
insanity  where  no  intellectual  disorder  appears  the  most 
abundant  opportunity  is  afforded  for  its  display.  The 
patient  is  at  large,  goes  and  comes  as  he  will,  makes 
visits,  directs  his  domestic  concerns,  engages  in  busi- 
ness, and  in  all  his  movements  is  free  to  do  or  not  to 
do,  to  speak  or  to  keep  silent.  What  better  opportunity 
could  he  have  for  displaying  the  inmost  thoughts  and 
feelings  of  his  soul?  Neither  do  we  deny  that  a  symp- 
tom absent  in  one  stage  of  a  disease  may  appear  in  a 
subsequent  stage,  but  that  fact  would  not  warrant  us 
to  believe  that  this  symptom  actually  existed  from  the 
first.  Is  it  so  that  we  understand  the  course  of  disease? 
Does  any  one  imagine,  in  any  conceivable  instance,  that 
the  various  lesions  which  constitute  our  idea  of  disease 
all  begin  simultaneously  ?  If  we  know  any  thing  surely, 
it  is  that  these  lesions  occur  successively ;  and,  so  long 
as  the  presence  of  any  of  them  cannot  be  proved  by  posi- 
tive evidence,  we  conclude  that  their  time  has  not  yet 
come.  In  mental,  as  well  as  in  every  other  protracted, 
incurable  disease,  the  progress  is  from  bad  to  worse. 
Idle,  ever  changing  fancies  pass  at  last  into  strong  and 
gross  delusions  ;  careless,  inconsiderate,  heedless  man- 
ners gradually  change  into  brutal  ferocity ;  and  the 
power  to  reason  correctly  about  many  things  is  finally 


106  MORAL  INSANITY. 

succeeded  by  chaotic  incoherence  and  stupidity.  Moral 
insanity  often  passes  into  general  mental  disease,  but 
this  fact  is  no  proof  that  the  delusions  which  mark  the 
latter  existed  from  the  beginning  in  a  latent  condition. 

However  this  may  be,  the  general  doctrine  implied  by 
the  objection  is,  that,  in  the  absence  of  the  intellectual 
element,  the  moral  obliquity  must  be  regarded  as  a 
matter  of  vice  or  unbridled  passion.  It  would  seem  as 
if  the  authority  on  which  such  cases  are  reported  should 
protect  them  from  the  charge  of  having  been  imperfectly 
observed.  We  should  be  slow  to  believe  that  the  men 
whose  names  have  already  been  mentioned  were  such 
incompetent  observers  as  to  overlook  entirely  an  element 
of  disease  easily  detected  by  their  less  illustrious  suc- 
cessors. Of  course,  wisdom  is  not  confined  to  the  great. 
Many  a  humble  explorer  of  nature's  secrets,  patient  of 
labor,  modest  in  his  pretensions,  despising  not  the  light 
which  others  have  shed  on  his  path,  has  been  rewarded 
with  results  that  had  escaped  more  distinguished  ob- 
servers. Is  it  among  such  that  we  are  to  include  the 
marvellous  discovery  that  moral  insanity  is  a  myth  or  a 
blunder?  That  question  may  be  answered  in  a  very 
few  words.  That  cases  like  these  have  been  observed, 
where  the  element  of  intellectual  disorder  was  obvious, 
nobody  doubts.  They  only  mark  the  transition  point 
between  two  different  forms  of  insanity,  and  establish 
their  close  relationship.  It  is  precisely  what  we  might 
expect.  Nature  makes  no  dividing  lines  between  classes 
and  orders.  They  touch  one  another  at  numerous  points, 
and  thus  reveal  their  close  affinity.  These  cases  show 
merely  that,  however  much  the  traits  of  moral  disorder 
may  overshadow  every  other,  a  careful  examination  will 
sometimes  detect  indications  of  intellectual  disturbance, 
and   thus    illustrate    the   propositions   with   which  we 


MOEAL   INSANITY.  107 

started.  It  must  be  borne  in  mind,  too,  that  this  form 
of  disease,  like  every  other,  is  variable,  and  that  cases 
which  are  purely  moral  in  one  stage  of  their  progress 
may  subsequently  become  complicated  with  aberration 
of  the  intellect.  Nothing  can  demonstrate  more  forcibly 
the  correctness  of  our  views  than  the  frequency  of  this 
fact ;  and  the  inference  is  irresistible,  that  cases  which 
end  in  unequivocal  insanity  cannot,  at  an  earlier  stage  of 
their  progress,  have  been  merely  specimens  of  moral 
depravity. 

Another  class  of  our  opponents  contend,  that  in  the  so 
called  cases  of  moral  insanity  there  is  no  insanity  at  all, 
either  moral  or  intellectual.  What  is  regarded  as  such 
is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  depravity,  for  which  the 
individual  is  accountable.  For  how  are  we  to  distin- 
guish, they  say,  between  the  moral  disorder  which  is  the 
effect  of  disease,  and  that  which  is  the  natural  result  of 
bad  education,  vicious  associates,  and  evil  habits?  If 
every  trait  of  alleged  moral  insanity  may  be  paralleled 
by  one  of  unquestionable  depravity,  where  are  we  to  look 
for  the  element  of  insanity  when  it  cannot  be  found  in 
the  intellect  ?  Many  of  those  who  talk  thus  have  no  dif- 
ficulty in  meeting  a  similar  objection  when  offered  to  the 
admission  of  some  forms  of  intellectual  disorder.  The 
sayings  and  doings  of  many  an  insane  man  might  be 
paralleled  seriatim,  by  those  of  persons  whose  sanity  has 
never  been  questioned.  Every  day,  lawyers  avail  them- 
selves of  this  fact  to  stultify  some  luckless  expert  who 
gives  the  grounds  of  his  belief  in  some  one's  insanity. 
u  Do  you  believe,  sir,  that  every  person  who  says  or 
does  such  a  thing  is  insane  ?  "  "  Certainly  not."  "  Or 
a  certain  other  thing?  "  "  Certainly  not."  And  so  the 
whole  catalogue  of  particulars  by  which  the  mental  dis- 
ease was  manifested  is  exhausted,  and  the  party  is  shown 


108  MORAL  INSANITY. 

not  to  have  been  insane  at  all.  A  sort  of  logic,  —  in 
the  vernacular  of  the  day  called  a  dodge,  —  pardonable 
in  a  lawyer  who  knows  no  higher  forensic  merit  than 
that  of  cunning,  could  hardly  have  been  expected  from 
a  scientific  man  discussing  a  question  of  science  ;  and 
least  of  all  from  one  who  has  any  practical  knowledge  of 
mental  disease. 

The  existence  of  insanity  in  any  form  is  not  always 
proved  by  the  presence  of  any  particular  symptom,  or 
even  group  of  symptoms,  but  rather  by  changes  of  mind 
or  character,  which  can  be  explained  on  no  other  hypoth- 
esis than  that  of  disease.  In  other  words,  the  party 
must  be  compared  with  himself,  not  with  any  imaginary 
standard  of  sanity  or  insanity.  "  It  is  the  prolonged 
departure,  without  any  adequate  external  cause,"  says 
Dr.  Combe,  "  from  the  state  of  feeling  and  modes  of 
thinking  usual  to  the  individual  when  in  health,  that  is 
the  true  feature  of  disorder  of  mind."  The  soundness 
of  this  rule  has  never  been  impugned  in  court  or  out. 
In  any  alleged  case  of  moral  insanity,  let  the  party  be 
compared  with  himself.  If  it  should  appear  that,  though 
naturally  mild  and  patient,  respectful  and  courteous,  up- 
right and  benevolent,  kind  and  affectionate,  the  person 
has  become  restless  and  passionate,  rude  and  boisterous, 
unscrupulous  and  unprincipled,  tyrannical  and  cruel ; 
and  that  this  remarkable  change  had  been  rather  sud- 
denly effected,  and  apparently  by  none  of  the  ordinary 
causes  which  affect  men's  characters,  it  is  a  fair,  it  is  an 
inevitable  conclusion,  that  the  person  in  question  is  in- 
sane. If  these  changes  of  character  have  occurred  more 
than  once,  the  patient  in  the  intervals  exhibiting  his 
normal  disposition,  then  not  a  shadow  of  doubt  can  exist. 
Where  the  moral  disorder  is  limited  to  a  single  trait,  as 
in  homicidal  monomania,  kleptomania,  pyromania,  <fcc, 


MORAL   INSANITY.  109 

the  diagnosis  is,  no  doubt,  more  difficult  ;  but  it  is  seldom 
beyond  our  reach,  under  an  exhaustive  investigation. 
Murder,  for  instance,  is  sometimes  committed  in  the 
most  brutal  and  motiveless  style  by  men  who  are  un- 
questionably acting  under  no  other  influence  than  the 
bent  of  their  nature  or  their  manners.  Shall  we  com- 
pare with  them  the  tender  mother  who  calls  for  her  new- 
born babe  and  severs  its  head  from  its  body,  or  the 
exemplary  father  and  husband  who  feels  impelled  by  an 
irresistible  power  to  sacrifice  his  wife  and  children, 
till  that  moment  dearer  to  him  than  his  own  existence  ? 
Shall  we  compare  with  the  practised  thief  or  pickpocket 
one  who,  towards  the  end  of  a  life  of  honesty  and  many 
Christian  virtues,  purloins  at  every  opportunity  articles 
of  little  or  no  value  ?  Shall  we  compare  the  midnight 
incendiary,  governed  by  some  motive  of  malice  or  in- 
terest, with  the  poor  girl  who,  in  consequence  of  abnor- 
mal cerebral  action  induced  by  other  bodily  ailments,  is 
borne  on,  in  spite  of  every  good  resolution,  to  burn  down 
the  very  roof  which  affords  shelter  to  herself  and  those 
she  holds  most  dear  ?  These  are  not  imaginary  cases. 
They  have  been  actually  witnessed,  and  the  books 
abound  with  similar  ones.  True,  cases  of  a  disputable 
character  sometimes  occur,  —  cases  in  which  we  may 
well  doubt  whether  the  active  principle  is  depravity  or 
disease.  I  have  no  wish  to  conceal  any  difficulty  which 
this  subject  may  present.  Science  is  full  of  difficulties, 
and  the  pleasure  and  dignity  of  its  pursuit  consist 
mainly  in  triumphing  over  them.  The  apparent  identity 
of  these  cases  is  no  reason  why  we  should  utterly  ignore 
those  where  no  doubt  can  exist  of  the  essential  differ- 
ence. Nobody  asks  us  to  drop  the  usual  distinction  be- 
tween melancholia  and  dementia,  between  hypochondria 
and  mania,  because    we  occasionally  meet  with  cases 


110  MORAL   INSANITY. 

which  cannot  be  unhesitatingly  referred  to  either  of 
these  forms  of  mental  disease.  In  fact,  the  argument  is 
equally  valid  against  any  and  every  attempted  distinc- 
tion between  any  conditions  or  objects  having  some 
properties  in  common.  It  indicates  no  remarkable  ad- 
vance in  knowledge,  if,  with  all  the  opportunities  which 
modern  science  and  philanthropy  have  placed  before  us, 
we  are  unable,  in  a  considerable  number  of  cases,  to  dis- 
tinguish those  traits  of  character  that  result  from  vicious 
desires  from  such  as  are  produced  by  the  action  of  dis- 
ease. At  any  rate,  every  principle  of  justice,  every 
emotion  of  humanity,  impels  us  to  treat  these  cases  with 
a  sort  of  philosophic  impartiality,  and  give  them  a  care- 
ful and  dispassionate  examination. 

If  the  difficulty  of  distinguishing  between  moral  de- 
pravity and  moral  insanity  is  a  sufficient  reason  for 
ignoring  the  latter  altogether,  the  argument  would  be 
equally  strong  against  admitting  any  kind  of  insanity  in 
defence  of  crime.  Was  there  ever  a  case  on  trial  en- 
tirely free  from  doubt?  Was  a  case  ever  tried  in  which 
the  prosecution  did  not  contend  that  the  sayings,  doings, 
looks,  demeanor,  alleged  to  be  indicative  of  insanity, 
were  compatible  with  mental  health  and  soundness  ?  Mc- 
Naughton,  who  killed  the  secretary  of  Sir  Robert  Peel, 
and  was  acquitted  on  the  ground  of  insanity,  talked  and 
acted  for  the  most  part  like  any  sane  man  ;  and  the 
notion  which  led  him  to  commit  the  act  might  not,  in 
the  nature  of  things,  have  been  necessarily  false,  or 
such  as  no  sane  man  could  possibly  entertain.  So,  in 
fact,  the  English  public  believed  ;  and  fierce  was  the 
storm  of  indignation  which  his  acquittal  excited.  But 
do  we  any  the  less  believe  that  McNaughton  was  insane 
to  such  a  dggree  as  to  be  irresponsible  for  his  acts  ?  We 
might  go  through  the  whole  catalogue  of  causes  celebres 


MORAL   INSANITY.  Ill 

in  which  the  plea  of  insanity  has  been  successfully  used 
during  the  present  century,  and  observe,  in  every  one,  a 
similar  state  of  facts  ;  viz.,  notions  which  were  the  veri- 
table offspring  of  insanity  associated  with  mental  quali- 
ties and  operations  indicative  of  a  rational  mind,  and 
doubt  and  dissatisfaction  on  the  part  of  the  public.  It 
seems  to  be  forgotten  that  men  whose  insanity  is  ap- 
parent to  the  world  are  never  put  on  trial.  It  is  pre- 
cisely because  there  is  room  for  doubt  that  the  case  is 
tried,  —  that  the  evidence  for  and  against  may  be  heard 
and  considered.  True,  a  mistake  may  be  made,  and  a 
criminal  may  unjustly  escape  the  punishment  of  his 
crimes.  Are  we  prepared  to  say,  on  this  account,  that 
insanity  ought  never  to  be  admitted  in  excuse  for 
crime  ? 

It  may  be  remarked,  that  some  who  would  not  deny 
the  existence  of  moral  insanity  object  to  the  name  and 
deprecate  its  use.  This  form  of  disease  is  supposed  to 
be  confined  to  the  moral  faculties,  as  others  are  to  the 
intellectual ;  and  therefore,  upon  the  ordinary  principles 
of  nomenclature,  it  is  very  properly  called  moral  insanity. 
Emotional,  or  affective,  might  signify  the  same  thing,  but 
I  am  not  sure  that  they  would  be  more  acceptable  to  our 
opponents.  At  any  rate,  until  they  furnish  us  with  a 
better,  we  must  of  necessity  keep  the  present.  Others 
think  that,  somehow,  the  dignity  of  the  profession  is 
compromised  by  the  term  ;  that  it  provokes  the  censure 
and  sneers  of  the  world,  and  defeats  the  very  object  we 
have  in  view.  I  am  unable  to  see  how  the  honest  results 
of  a  scientific  investigation  can  be  detrimental  to  the 
cause  of  truth  and  justice.  If  such  be  really  the  effect 
in  the  present  case,  it  is  attributable  rather  to  the  thing 
than  to  the  name,  and  of  course  would  not  be  changed 
by  any  modification  of  the  latter.     Names,  unquestion- 


112  MORAL  INSANITY. 

ably,  are  often  more  potent  than  things ;  but  we  might 
bring  ample  proof,  were  it  worth  our  while,  that  such  is 
not  the  case  here. 

Others  who  believe  in  the  thing,  and  do  not  strongly 
object  to  the  name,  advise  medical  witnesses  to  abstain 
from  its  use  in  courts  of  justice.  "  If,"  say  they,  "  an 
acknowledged  expert  will  but  testify,  after  a  due  and 
sufficient  examination  of  the  case  of  an  alleged  criminal, 
that  he  is  insane,  it  matters  not  whether  the  insanity 
manifests  itself  through  the  intellectual  or  through  the 
moral  faculties  :  it  is  still  insanity,  in  the  eye  of  the  law, 
and  is  entitled  to  the  privileges  and  immunities  of  in- 
sanity, without  splitting  hairs  betwixt  north  and  north- 
west side  to  define  the  difference  of  one  shade  of  insanity 
from  another.  .  .  .  For  all  legal  purposes,  then,  it  seems 
idle  to  suffer  the  special  defence  of  moral  insanity."  1 
The  giver  of  this  sage  advice  speaks,  no  doubt,  in  all  the 
freshness  of  ingenuous  innocence  ;  but  he  was  evidently 
never  on  the  witness-stand.  Had  he  ever  experienced 
one  of  those  inquisitorial  performances  to  which  lawyers 
are  allowed  to  subject  a  medical  witness  whose  testimony 
has  damaged  the  cause  of  their  clients,  he  would  have  dis- 
covered that  it  was  not  quite  optional  with  him  what  he 
may  declare  and  what  he  may  withhold.  No  great  stretch 
of  ingenuity,  or  lack  of  courtesy,  would  be  required  to 
get  from  him  the  obnoxious  word,  in  spite  of  his  good 
resolves  to  abstain  from  "  splitting  hairs  betwixt  north 
and  north-west  side."  The  process  may  be  easily  im- 
agined, as,  for  instance,  in  the  following  scene :  — 

Lawyer.  You  believe  that  the  prisoner  was  insane  at 
that  time  ? 

Witness.     I  do. 

1  American  Journal  of  Insanity,  xiv.  319. 


MORAL   INSANITY.  113 

L.     What  kind  of  insanity  do  you  call  it? 

W.  I  beg  your  pardon,  but  I  do  not  trouble  myself 
with  "  splitting  hairs,"  &c.  It  is  enough  for  me  and  for 
you  to  know  that  he  was  insane, 

L.  Perhaps  so  ;  but,  nevertheless,  please  state  for  the 
information  of  the  court  and  jury  whether  some  of  the 
best  writers  on  insanity  do  not  divide  it  into  several 
classes  and  orders. 

W.    They  do. 

L.     Esquirol  is  high  authority,  is  he  not? 

W.    He  certainly  is. 

L.  What  is  his  classification  ?  You  are  no  doubt 
familiar  with  it. 

W.  He  makes  five  classes,  —  Lypemania,  Monoma- 
nia, Mania,  Dementia,  and  Idiocy,  or  Imbecility. 

L.     To  which  of  these  classes,  do  you  apprehend,  does 
the  present  case  belong? 
W.     Mania. 

L.  Is  not  Mania  divided  sometimes  into  intellectual 
and  moral,  according  as  it  is  confined  to  the  intellect- 
ual or  moral  faculties  ? 

W.     It  is. 

L.  Do  you  recognize  the  correctness  of  the  distinc- 
tion ? 

W.  I  do  ;  but  I  protest  against  the  name,  moral  in- 
sanity. 

L.  Very  well.  Since  you  admit  the  thing  itself,  we 
will  not  quarrel  about  the  name  it  goes  by.  I  choose  to 
call  it  moral  insanity.  You  may  call  it  what  you  please, 
so  long  as  you  mean  the  same  thing. 

There  is  a  class  of  objections  to  which  I  shall  merely 
advert,  for  more  than  this  would  scarcely  be  allowed  by 
a  proper  respect  for  the  dignity  of  the  scientific  char- 
acter.    It  is  mortifying  to  our  professional  pride  to  see 

8 


114  MORAL   INSANITY. 

men  who  ought  to  consider  themselves  as  the  ministers 
and  interpreters  of  Nature,  rejoicing  in  their  glorious 
office  and  receiving  her  revelations  in  a  glad  and  teach- 
able spirit,  on  the  contrary  turning  away  from  them 
with  a  feeling  of  scorn  because  they  conflict  with  some 
preconceived  notions  of  their  own.  There  is  brought  to 
their  notice  an  order  of  facts,  both  numerous  and  well- 
authenticated,  exhibiting  a  common  incident  or  quality 
of  a  highly  important  character.  But  it  affords  no  satis- 
faction to  them.  They  do  not  ask  if  the  facts  are  true, 
if  the  conclusions  are  legitimately  drawn.  They  care 
for  none  of  these  things.  It  is  enough  for  them  that,  in 
their  opinion,  the  tendency  is  bad  ;  and  upon  their  short- 
sighted views  of  the  moral  consequences  of  a  scientific 
conclusion  they  presume  to  decide  whether  it  is  true  or 
false.  A  course  so  unworthy  of  the  true  scientific  in- 
quirer, so  completely  at  variance  with  every  principle 
of  sound  philosophizing,  requires  no  formal  examination. 
Our  opponents  are  welcome  to  all  the  advantage  which 
it  may  give  them  ;  and  it  has  some  effect,  no  doubt, 
upon  all  that  description  of  men  whose  jealousy  of  med- 
ical science  is  equalled  only  by  their  ignorance  of  the 
manner  and  spirit  in  which  it  has  been  pursued.  A 
single  passage,  in  illustration  of  my  meaning,  will  be 
sufficient  for  the  present  purpose  :  — 

"  The  general  tendency  of  the  doctrine  of  moral  in- 
sanity is  bad,  whatever  show  or  real  feeling  of  humanity 
there  may  be  in  it.  It  is  bad  in  a  religious  view,  be- 
cause it  tempts  men  to  indulge  their  strongest  passions, 
under  the  false  impression  that  God  has  so  constituted 
them  that  their  passions  are  not  generally  governable 
by  their  will  or  their  reason,  and  that,  therefore,  there 
is  no  punishable  guilt  in  indulging  them." 1 

1  American  Journal  of  Insanity,  xiv.  321. 


MORAL    INSANITY.  115 

It  seems  to  be  a  matter  of  complaint  among  our 
opponents,  that  we  do  not  hesitate,  in  the  absence  of 
other  proof,  to  infer  the  existence  of  mental  disease 
solely  from  the  character  of  the  particular  act  in  ques- 
tion. Their  idea  is,  that  we  are  bound  first  to  prove  the 
existence  of  the  disease,  and  then  —  not  before  —  we 
may  be  warranted  in  attributing  to  it  a  criminal  act  that 
might  possibly  have  been  the  offspring  of  moral  deprav- 
ity. They  forget  very  strangely  that  the  only  conclusive 
proof  of  the  existence  of  mental  disease  is  to  be  found  in 
the  mental  manifestations  of  the  patient.  He  may  have 
lost  his  appetite,  his  head  may  feel  tight  and  oppressed, 
he  may  have  become  sleepless  and  restless,  but  these 
symptoms  do  not  prove  him  to  be  insane.  It  is  only  what 
he  says  or  does,  as  compared  with  what  he  said  or  did 
when  supposed  to  be  sane,  that  has  any  bearing  on  this 
point,  although  no  doubt  these  symptoms  of  bodily  ail- 
ment furnish  confirmatory  proof.  We  admit,  with  them, 
that  the  single  criminal  act,  unaccompanied  by  other  sus- 
picious circumstances,  may  sometimes  be  very  unsatis- 
factory proof  of  insanity  ;  but  we  apprehend  that  such 
cases  are  very  infrequent.  When  such  an  act  is  really 
the  result  of  insanity,  we  can  usually  find  in  the  ante- 
cedent or  subsequent  history  of  the  patient,  if  we  will 
carefully  look  for  it,  some  corroborative  proof  of  its 
presence.  Even  without  it,  the  act  may  be  of  such  a 
nature  that  the  common  instincts  of  humanity  impel  us 
to  refer  it  to  mental  disease  ;  and  this,  I  submit,  is  as  good 
ground  for  an  opinion  as  arbitrary  rules  and  theoretical 
considerations.  When  a  woman,  previously  distinguished 
for  every  virtue,  takes  the  life  of  her  darling  child,  am  I 
obliged  to  stifle  my  instinctive  convictions  of  her  insan- 
ity merely  because  no  other  symptom  of  mental  dis- 
ease has  been  witnessed?     In  such  a  case  we  may  be 


116  MORAL    INSANITY. 

sure  science   and  humanity  render  no  discrepant  testi- 
mony.. 

In  a  large  proportion  of  cases,  as  is  well  known,  the 
crowning  proof  of  insanity  is  drawn  chiefly  from  the 
character  of  some  single  act,  the  previous  and  subse- 
quent manifestations  of  disease  being  too  obscure  and 
equivocal  to  possess  much  significance.  Now  it  is  going 
but  one  step  farther,  and  that  not  a  very  long  one,  to 
regard  such  act  as  the  sole  proof.  The  force  of  the  proof 
is  not  derived  from  the  number  of  the  diseased  manifes- 
tations, or  the  precise  time  of  their  appearance,  so  much 
as  it  is  from  their  significance  ;  and  in  this  respect  the 
act  of  which  the  person  is  accused  may  be  far  more  im- 
portant than  all  other  traits  and  incidents  together.  To 
leave  this  out  of  the  account  indicates  not  so  much  any 
especial  regard  for  justice  or  scientific  propriety  as  it 
does  a  total  inability  to  comprehend  its  true  legal  and 
scientific  relations.  There  is  no  reason  why  we  should 
be  cut  off  from  any  source  of  evidence  whatever,  touch- 
ing the  mental  condition  of  one  who  pleads  insanity  in 
defence  of  crime.  If  it  should  stand  alone,  single  and 
circumscribed,  then  certainly  it  is  all  the  more  carefully 
to  be  considered  and  estimated.  So  that  if  the  act  itself 
exhibit  mental  disturbance,  if  it  be  contrary  to  the  char- 
acteristic feelings,  habits,  and  principles  of  the  person, 
it  furnishes  a  no  less  valid  excuse  than  something  which 
may  have  occurred  days  or  weeks  before.  But  the  act, 
it  is  said,  is  the  very  thing  in  dispute,  and  therefore 
cannot  be  fairly  used  in  evidence  for  or  against.  This 
may  sound  plausible,  perhaps;  but  it  will  prove,  on 
examination,  only  a  paltry  sophism.  It  is  not  the  act 
that  is  to  be  tried.  It  is  the  guilt  or  the  innocence  of 
the  individual  that  is  to  be  established  ;  and,  if  the  act  in 
question  furnish  any  evidence  on   this  point,  it  may  be 


MORAL   INSANITY.  117 

legitimately  used.  Its  sufficiency  for  the  purpose  is 
quite  another  matter,  and  can  be  properly  estimated 
only  by  means  of  the  light  which  is  derived  from  a  pro- 
found and  extensive  study  of  mental  phenomena,  both  in 
the  sane  and  insane  condition. 

Another  fruitful  source  of  arguments  against  the 
doctrine  of  moral  insanity  is  found  in  its  supposed 
consequences  and  collateral  accompaniments.  A  speci- 
men or  two,  by  way  of  illustration,  will  answer  my 
present  purpose.  "  Almost  any  man  may  satisfy  his 
mind,  if  not  his  conscience, —  a  sane  man,  perhaps,  most 
readily,  —  that  he  has  been  surprised  into  a  crime  by 
some  strange  and  irresistible  impulse,  some  demoniacal 
instigation,  some  fatal  propensity,  or  some  unaccountable 
frenzy,  that  he  could  not  master  for  its  suddenness  and 
its  force.  Such  casualties  may  be,  and  doubtless  are  ; 
but  God  only  can  judge  of  them.  Human  laws  cannot: 
their  nicest  refinements  are  too  gross  for  such  subtle- 
ties."1 Here  it  is  virtually  admitted  that  a  person  may 
be  morally  insane,  but,  inasmuch  as  the  fact  can  be  known 
only  to  God,  it  should  not  be  received  as  an  excuse  for 
crime.  Sane  or  insane,  he  must  suffer  precisely  as  if  his 
sanity  were  unquestioned.  The  old  maxim  of  the  courts 
is  to  be  reversed  ;  for  the  sentiment  of  the  passage  is, 
better  that  ten  insane  persons  be  convicted  than  that 
one  sane  person  should  be  acquitted  on  the  ground 
of  insanity.  This  indicates  no  advance  in  humanity, 
if  it  does  in  science  ;  but  it  is  really  no  more  credit- 
able to  one  than  it  is  to  the  other.  The  writer  may 
speak  for  himself,  but  we  protest  against  his  meas- 
uring the  professional  sagacity  of  others  by  his  own. 
There  are  a  few  poor  mortals,  I  believe,  who,  without 

1  American  Journal  of  Insanity,  xii.  339. 


118  MOEAL  INSANITY. 

any  great  presumption,  or  uncommon  exercise  of  skill, 
profess  to  be  able  to  recognize  moral  insanity  where 
it  really  exists.  The  fact  implied  in  the  opening  sen- 
tence, if  really  true,  which  I  strongly  doubt,  proves 
nothing  as  to  the  point  in  hand.  In  a  criminal  trial 
the  question  is  not  what  the  prisoner  thinks  of  his 
guilt  or  innocence,  but  what  can  be  proved  to  the  satis- 
faction of  the  jury.  If  moral  insanity  is  pleaded  in  his 
defence,  proof  of  the  fact  must  be  found  in  the  ante- 
cedents of  the  prisoner,  the  manner  of  committing  the 
crime,  his  mental  or  bodily  condition,  all  the  circum- 
stances, in  fact,  connected  with  the  act.  I  have  no 
hesitation  in  saying  that  a  patient  investigation  of  the 
case  would  always  reveal  at  last  its  true  character,  and, 
I  repeat,  he  must  have  but  a  low  estimate  of  his  own 
sagacity,  or  of  his  own  resources,  who  can  fear  that, 
under  such  an  investigation,  a  genuine  criminal  could 
succeed  in  passing  himself  off  as  insane.  It  may  be 
said,  no  doubt,  with  some  truth,  that  a  criminal  trial 
does  not  always  afford  the  means  of  a  thorough  inves- 
tigation, and  that  a  jury  is  often  governed  more  by  the 
appeals  of  counsel  than  by  satisfactory  proof  respecting 
the  mental  condition.  The  proper  remedy  for  the  evil, 
however,  is  not  to  abolish  the  plea  because  it  is  too 
readily  accepted  by  easy,  credulous  juries,  but,  by  some 
change  in  the  mode  of  procedure,  to  have  it  satisfac- 
torily disposed  of  one  way  or  the  other.  To  ignore  and 
reject,  utterly  and  forever,  a  plea,  merely  because  it  is 
occasionally  abused,  is  a  puerile  folly  hardly  to  have 
been  expected  of  men  who  claim  any  respect  for  their 
opinions/ 

This  question  is  important  not  so  much  for  its  patho- 
logical as  its  forensic  relations.  The  expert,  who  be- 
lieves  that  there    is    no    insanity  without   intellectual 


MORAL   IXSANITY.  119 

derangement,  is  powerless  before  the  courts  in  cases  of 
what  is  called  moral  insanity.  He  regards  the  accused 
as  insane,  and  clearly  entitled  to  plead  insanity  in 
excuse  for  their  acts  ;  but,  as  no  intellectual  derange- 
ment is  apparent,  he  is  obliged  to  adopt  the  strange 
assumption  that  it  is  there,  though  he  does  not  pretend 
to  see  it,  —  a  sort  of  constructive  presence  to  be  recog- 
nized only  by  an  exercise  of  faith.  Now  faith,  though 
one  of  the  strongest  proofs  of  a  profoundly  religious 
spirit,  is  but  a  poor  foundation  for  a  scientific  deduc- 
tion. Courts  rigidly  insist  on  positive,  tangible  proofs. 
Even  opinions,  though  admitted  as  evidence,  are  worth- 
less to  them,  except  so  far  as  they  rest  on  facts  ;  but  worse 
than  worthless  are  conjectures  without  the  slightest  pre- 
tence of  support  in  actual  fact.  This  doctrine  of  the 
constructive  presence  of  intellectual  lesion  would,  in 
practice,  contribute  as  little  to  the  benefit  of  the  ac- 
cused as  it  would  to  the  reputation  of  the  expert.  Are 
such  persons  as  those  who  are  supposed  to  be  subject  to 
this  form  of  disease,  —  who  abound  in  private  life  and 
are  found  in  every  hospital  for  the  insane, —  are  they  to 
derive  no  benefit  from  the  plea  of  insanity  in  courts  of 
justice  ?  This,  certainly,  is  the  legitimate  effect  of  the 
position  that  intellectual  derangement  must  necessarily 
exist,  whether  apparent  or  not,  in  every  case  of  insan- 
ity. The  proper  course  of  the  expert  is  to  say  that  the 
person  is  insane,  and  that  the  insanity  is  confined,  so  far 
as  he  can  see,  to  the  moral  or  affective  powers,  being 
manifested  in  the  conduct  and  not  at  all  in  the  conversa- 
tion. He  thus  neither  affirms  nor  denies  the  existence 
of  intellectual  lesion.  He  simply  says  that  none  is  per- 
ceptible. 

I  have  thus  disposed  of  what  I  take  to  be  the   prin- 
cipal objections  to  the  doctrine  of  moral  insanity.     It 


120  MORAL   INSANITY. 

may  be  regarded,  perhaps,  as  a  work  of  supererogation 
by  most  of  those  who  have  been  much  conversant  with 
the  insane,  and  in  the  habit  of  considering  the  exist- 
ence of  this  form  of  disease  as  well  settled  as  that  of 
any  other.  They  must  bear  in  mind,  however,  that 
objections  which  seem  too  puerile  for  serious  refutation 
are  urged  upon  courts,  paraded  in  newspapers,  and 
patronized  by  amateur  writers  on  the  legal  relations  of 
the  insane.  In  this  way,  they  get  a  factitious  authority 
which  deceives  the  ignorant  or  unwary,  and  therefore 
procures  for  them  a  degree  of  attention  they  would 
never  obtain  by  their  intrinsic  merits  alone.  When 
it  is  regarded  as  a  mark  of  superior  wisdom,  and  of 
elevation  above  the  foibles  and  crotchets  of  well-mean- 
ing but  simple-minded  men,  to  scout  at  such  results 
of  faithful  observation  as  happen  to  jostle  the  prejudices 
of  the  world,  it  becomes  a  duty  to  speak. 


DOUBTFUL   RECOVERIES. 


In  most  diseases  we  are  seldom  left  in  any  uncertainty 
respecting  the  fact  of  complete  recovery.  If  the  ra- 
tional symptoms  leave  any  doubt  on  tins  point,  we  can 
often  supply  their  deficiency  by  the  direct  evidence  of 
the  senses.  The  ear  will  reveal  to  us  the  slightest  trace 
of  disease  in  the  heart  and  lungs,  and  the  touch  may 
enlighten  us  sufficiently  respecting  abscesses,  morbid 
growths,  and  displacements.  In  mental  diseases,  how- 
ever, the  senses  afford  us  no  help  whatever.1  No 
friendly  tube,  no  arts  of  manipulation,  will  acquaint  us 
with  the  organic  movements  going  on  beneath  that  bony 
dome.  Whether  the  disappearance  of  all  or  most  of  the 
rational  symptoms  indicates  the  restoration  of  the  cere- 
bral organism  to  its  normal  condition,  or  only  their 
temporary  cessation,  in  accordance  with  a  known  law  of 
periodicity,  is  a  question  which  we  must  often  hesitate  to 
answer  ;  and  we  are  thus  left  in  a  state  of  embarrassing 
uncertainty  as  to  a  point  of  the  greatest  practical  im- 
portance. And  yet  it  is  laid  upon  us  to  decide  whether 
our  patient  is  able  to  resume  his  place  in  the  world,  or 
requires  weeks  or  months  of  farther  probation. 

If  any  hospital  physician  can  say  that  he  has  never 
discharged  a  patient  with  all  possible  confidence  in  the 

1  It  remains  yet  to  be  seen  whether  the  ophthalmoscope  furnishes  any 
exception  to  this  rule. 


122  DOUBTFUL   RECOVERIES. 

completeness  of  the  recovery,  and  readmitted  him  a  few 
weeks  afterwards,  in  an  active  stage  of  disease,  he  cer- 
tainly has  reached  a  degree  of  skill  to  which  I  can  lay 
no  claim.  I  recognize  the  necessity  of  an  ample  period 
for  the  stage  of  convalescence,  and  am  aware  that  the 
views  of  others  on  this  point  often  prevail  over  our  own. 
I  admit  that  the  impatience  and  self-sufficiency  of  friends 
generally  render  it  too  short,  and  procure  the  discharge 
of  the  patient  when  our  own  unbiassed  judgment  wrould 
dictate  a  longer  stay.  My  proposition  is,  that  in  cases 
where  we  can  no  longer  discover  sure  indications  of 
disease,  and  where  we  are  allowed  to  retain  the  patient 
as  long  as  we  please,  without  let  or  hindrance  from 
others,  discharge  is  occasionally  followed  by  speedy  re- 
lapse. Without  exaggeration,  it  may  be  said  that  in 
our  specialty,  though  the  cure  of  the  patient  may  be  a 
veritable  triumph  of  skill,  yet  to  know  precisely  when 
he  is  cured  may  signify  the  far  greater  triumph  of  that 
keen  insight  which  looks  beneath  the  surface  and  dis- 
cerns conditions  utterly  hidden  from  common  sight. 
Under  the  guidance  of  books,  or  on  a  stated  routine,  we 
often  succeed  in  effecting  a  cure.  The  course  is  plainly 
marked  out  for  us,  and  it  must  be  our  own  fault  if  we  do 
not  follow  it.  Here,  however,  we  can  obtain  but  little 
assistance  from  books.  We  must  depend  solely  on  our 
own  resources  ;  and,  if  these  consist  only  of  a  little  knowl- 
edge of  routine,  we  can  scarcely  avoid  some  mistakes. 
If,  however,  they  consist  of  an  ample  knowledge  of  the 
mental  phenomena  both  in  a  healthy  and  morbid  state, 
and  especially  in  a  kind  of  sagacity  or  tact  which  en- 
ables us  readily  to  apply  this  knowledge  to  the  case  in 
hand,  we  shall  arrive  at  the  right  conclusion,  where 
others,  less  abundantly  qualified  in  these  respects,  would 
sometimes  err. 


DOUBTFUL   RECOVERIES.  123 

In  the  first  place,  to  appreciate  rightly  the  indications 
of  recovery,  one  must  be  more  or  less  acquainted  with 
the  healthy  mind.  A  man  who  should  undertake  to 
make  an  autopsy,  without  the  least  familiarity  with  the 
healthy  aspect  of  the  various  organs,  could  claim  as 
little  respect  for  his  conclusions  as  one  who  should 
decide  a  question  of  recovery  from  mental  disease,  with 
only  the  most  superficial  knowledge  of  the  traits  of 
character  and  operations  of  the  intellect  exhibited  by 
the  normal  mind.  How  could  it  be  otherwise  ?  We 
regard  it  as  a  settled  principle  that  the  essential  con- 
dition of  insanity  is  a  departure  from  the  natural  char- 
acter without  any  adequate  external  cause ;  and  that,  in 
deciding  the  question  of  insanity  in  any  given  case,  the 
person  must  be  compared,  not  with  any  conventional 
standard  of  sanity,  but  solely  with  himself.  Of  course, 
it  cannot  be  supposed  that  we  should  be  acquainted 
with  the  mental  character  of  every  patient  under  our 
charge.  In  regard  to  the  most  of  them,  in  fact,  we  are 
but  imperfectly  acquainted  with  the  history  of  their 
disease,  to  say  nothing  of  those  moral  and  intellectual 
qualities  which  distinguish  them  in  health.  In  order  to 
accomplish  our  object,  we  must  chiefly  depend  upon  our 
knowledge  of  mental  phenomena  in  the  abstract  or  in 
the  concrete,  —  as  analyzed  by  the  metaphysician,  or 
exhibited  in  the  living,  thinking  man.  The  secret  of 
Shakespeare's  unrivalled  success  in  the  delineation  of 
insanity  lay  not  in  an  extensive  observation  of  the  dis- 
ease,—  for  he,  probably,  had  seen  very  little  of  it, — 
but  in  a  profound  knowledge  of  the  springs  of  action,  and 
an  exquisite  discernment  of  the  countless  varieties  of 
human  character.  He  recognized  the  pregnant  truth 
that  disease,  whether  of  body  or  mind,  is  governed  by 
laws  as  inflexible  as  those  of  health,  and  that  there  is  an 


124  DOUBTFUL   EECOVERIES. 

invariable  relation  between  them,  whereby,  within  cer- 
tain limits,  we  are  enabled  to  infer  with  no  less  certainty 
than  we  are  to  observe.  One  of  these  laws  is,  that  the 
normal  movements  of  the  mind  are  not  entirely  lost  in 
the  abnormal,  but  impart  to  them  their  peculiar  type 
and  mode  of  expression.  Thus,  Lady  Macbeth,  while 
wandering  in  her  sleep  and  reviewing  the  scenes  of  that 
terrible  night,  is  but  the  reflex  image  of  Lady  Macbeth 
before  the  vision  of  regal  state  lured  her  to  destruction. 
And  so  skilfully  is  this  same  principle  applied  in  Hamlet, 
that  the  world  is  yet  in  doubt  whether  the  poet  intended 
to  exhibit  an  actual  case  of  insanity  passing  through  its 
various  stages,  or  merely  an  irresolute,  speculating  youth, 
breaking  out  occasionally  into  a  simulated  paroxysm  of 
frenzy.  The  faculty  which  in  Shakespeare  led  to  such 
wonderful  results,  must  be  possessed  and  exercised,  more 
or  less,  by  every  successful  student  of  morbid  psychology. 
Among  the  most  common  and  prominent  traits  of  in- 
sanity are  many  exhibited  by  persons  considered  sane, 
and  who  are  so  for  all  practical  purposes.  Who  has  not 
witnessed  explosions  of  wrath  as  sudden,  as  unprovoked, 
as  furious,  as  unreasonable,  as  any  that  are  exhibited  by 
the  insane?  Who  has  not  observed,  in  persons  who  pass 
for  sane,  fancies  scarcely  to  be  distinguished  from  de- 
lusions ?  How  many  men  and  women  there  are  in  the 
world,  of  unquestioned  sanity,  who  sincerely  believe 
that  among  those  with  whom  they  habitually  deal  are 
persons  systematically  bent  on  thwarting  their  pur- 
poses, traducing  their  character,  and  marring  their 
peace  !  Such  manifestations  frequently  spring,  no  doubt, 
from  that  mental  obliquity  indicative  of  a  tendency 
to  insanity,  or  the  insane  temperament,  as  it  is 
called,  and  which,  by  the  way,  is  far  more  prevalent 
than   it  is  generally  supposed  to  be  ;  but  they   show, 


DOUBTFUL   RECOVERIES.  125 

none  the  less,  that  the  most  thorough  knowledge  of  the 
mental  constitution  is  often  needed  to  enable  the  psy- 
chologist to  distinguish  the  manifestations  of  disease 
from  those  of  reputed  health. 

The  aspects  of  insanity  are  innumerable  and  ever  new. 
The  longest  life  and  the  most  diligent  observation  can- 
not exhaust  their  infinite  variety.  The  ordinary  ob- 
server recognizes  no  other  insanity  than  that  -which  is 
characterized  by  noise  and  incoherence,  and  for  the 
same  reason  —  a  very  limited  experience  —  even  a  phy- 
sician is  liable  to  mistake  the  indications  of  disease  for 
those  of  the  soundest  mental  integrity.  We  all  know 
that  not  unfrequently  a  patient  may  exhibit  no  positive 
trace  of  disease,  for  weeks  or  months  together,  while  we 
are  strongly  suspicious,  all  the  time,  that  he  has  not 
recovered  his  normal  condition  ;  and  we  know  how  often 
the  event  justifies  the  suspicion.  Now,  our  view  of  such 
cases  is  determined  not  so  much  by  any  special  traits 
they  may  exhibit  as  by  those  general  impressions  which 
long  familiarity  with  the  disease  has  left  on  the  mind. 

The  result  of  these  different  degrees  of  qualification 
may  be  seen  in  another  shape.  A  beginner  in  this  de- 
partment of  our  art  hails  every  improvement  as  the  com- 
mencement of  convalescence,  and  is  apt  to  regard  the 
appearance  of  a  few  healthy  traits  as  the  unquestionable 
presage  of  recovery.  It  is  not  until  a  later  period  that 
he  becomes  acquainted  with  that  peculiar  oscillation 
which  marks  the  movements  of  mental  disease,  and  fully 
comprehends  the  fact  that  serious  disorder  may  exist  in 
connection  with  many  sound,  healthy  manifestations  of 
character.  Lawyers,  judges,  men  of  the  world,  may 
ignore  this  fact  altogether,  and  plume  themselves  on 
their  superior  sagacity  ;  but  no  one  in  this  department 
of  the  healing  art  can  do  it  -without  making  shipwreck 


126  DOUBTFUL   RECOVERIES. 

of  whatever  reputation  lie  may  happen  to  have  gained. 
I  do  not  mean  to  convey  the  idea  that  the  kind  of 
professional  sagacity  here  referred  to  will  be  exactly 
proportioned  to  the  number  of  cases  one  has  seen.  It 
is  not  the  number  of  cases  observed,  but  the  thorough- 
ness with  which  they  are  studied,  that  imparts  it.  To 
one  without  the  power  to  receive  and  inwardly  digest 
what  the  eye  sees  and  the  ear  hears,  a  multitude  of 
cases  afford  but  little  light,  for  they  leave  on  the  mind 
only  a  vague  and  obscure  impression.  For  years  he 
may  traverse  the  wards  of  a  hospital,  day  after  day,  and 
learn  little  or  nothing  of  that  higher  knowledge  which 
his  opportunities  have  placed  within  his  reach.  He 
may  learn  that  most  coveted  of  arts,  the  art  of  subduing 
excitement.  He  may  outstrip  his  neighbors  in  all  those 
little  appliances  which  arrest  the  popular  attention, 
while  the  nicer  shades  of  distinction  between  the  healthy 
and  the  disordered  mind,  the  deep  under-currents  of 
thought  and  feeling  which  determine  the  movements  of 
both,  ever  remain  as  remote  from  his  apprehension  as 
the  poles  are  asunder. 

We  must  also  bear  in  mind  that  no  amount  of  obser- 
vation or  study  will  always  lead  us  to  true  conclusions 
without  the  aid  of  that  faculty  of  the  mind  which  en- 
ables us  to  apply  our  knowledge  to  a  case  differing  from 
all  other  particular  cases  within  our  experience  ;  in  other 
words,  to  eliminate  the  essential  conditions  of  the  case 
r-4jom  the  accidental  circumstances  that  accompany  them. 
To  some  men  the  case  in  hand  conveys  no  idea  apart 
from  its  special  facts.  Their  knowledge  consists  ex- 
clusively in  particular  cases,  ticketed,  labelled,  and 
filed  away  in  their  memory.  When  the  occasion  re- 
quires some  power  of  nice  discernment,  —  of  deducing 
the  unknown  from  the  known  by  the  ready  perception 


DOUBTFUL   RECOVERIES.  127 

of  some  necessary  relation  between  them,  —  they  can 
only  fall  back  on  their  insulated  recollections. 

We  are  now  prepared  to  consider  some  of  those  in- 
cidents and  conditions  which  are  of  great  significance 
in  regard  to  the  question  of  recovery. 

It  is  a  rule  sanctioned  by  the  highest  authorities,  that 
a  patient  cannot  be  considered  as  recovered  who  does 
not  fully  recognize  the  fact  that  he  has  been  insane. 
As  a  general  rule,  it  is  undoubtedly  correct ;  but  the 
exceptions  are  neither  few  nor  insignificant.  In  every 
case  of  complete  recovery,  —  one  in  which  no  vestige 
of  disease  remains,  —  unquestionably,  the  patient  is  con- 
scious of  having  been  insane,  but  he  may  not  openly 
admit  it.  This  depends  on  his  mental  constitution. 
Men  who  have  always  entertained  a  high  opinion  of 
their  intellectual  gifts,  in  connection  with  a  proud  and 
haughty  spirit,  are  naturally  unwilling  to  admit  so  hum- 
bling a  fact  as  that  of  their  own  insanity.  They  may 
have  been  nervous,  they  may  have  been  excited,  they 
may  have  talked  fast  and  loud,  they  may  have  acted 
impetuously,  or  even  imprudently,  but  they  knew  per- 
fectly well  what  they  were  about,  and  a  few  days  of 
quiet  and  seclusion  would  have  effectually  calmed  their 
perturbed  spirits.  Such  is  their  explanation  of  occur- 
rences that  cannot  be  denied,  in  which,  to  be  sure,  they 
are  as  wise  as  the  creature  that  hides  his  head  in  the 
sand  and  then  thinks  he  cannot  be  seen.  This  kind 
of  attempted  self-deception  is  most  common  in  cases 
characterized  by  high  excitement  and  extravagant  dis- 
course, rather  than  by  delusions,  incoherence,  or  vio- 
lence. Delusions  that  were  openly  proclaimed  are  not 
so  plausibly  explained  ;  but  they  are  represented,  per- 
haps, as  only  idle,  fugitive  fancies  of  little  consequence, 
that  soon  passed  away.     If  the  patient  is  unprincipled 


128  DOUBTFUL  RECOVERIES. 

as  well  as  proud,  he  may  resort  to  subterfuges  that  are 
false  as  well  as  weak.  A  m  m  once  came  under  my 
care  while  in  a  paroxysm  of  high  excitement,  who  talked 
incessantly  for  two  or  three  weeks  of  having  been 
robbed,  the  day  before  he  came  in,  of  a  lot  of  jewelry 
purchased  by  him  shortly  before,  on  speculation.  He 
finally  ceased  talking  about  it,  and  we  heard  no  more  of 
it,  though  he  never  admitted  that  he  had  been  mistaken. 
Shortly  after  his  discharge,  he  came  to  me  showing  what 
purported  to  be  a  bill  of  some  $2,000  worth  of  jewelry 
sold  to  him,  and  part  payment  received.  The  date  of 
the  bill  corresponded  with  his  previous  story.  I  after- 
wards ascertained  that  this  document  was  entirely 
fictitious,  procured  for  a  few  dollars  from  an  itinerant 
vender  of  jewelry.  For  several  years,  this  man  had 
had  annual  paroxysms  of  excitement,  alternating  with 
fits  of  depression,  but  he  had  never  exhibited  delusions, 
and  had  not  been  popularly  regarded  as  insane.  He 
was  a  physician  in  good  repute,  and  had  never  ceased 
to  practise  on  account  of  his  mental  infirmity.  This 
contrivance  was  a  desperate  attempt  to  remove  an 
humiliating  imputation  on  his  intellectual  integrity. 

This  reluctance  to  acknowledge  their  infirmity  is 
still  more  common  in  a  class  of  patients  whose  usual 
condition  is  marked  by  striking  eccentricities  and  per- 
versities. Many  of  them,  probably,  labor  under  a 
genuine  mistake  on  this  point.  Men  who  are  always 
hovering  near  the  line  that  separates  sanity  from  insan- 
ity find  it  hard  to  believe  that  they  have  ever  fairly 
passed  over  it ;  and  this  difficulty  may  be  shared  by 
friends  and  neighbors  who  are  not  accustomed  to  a  very 
close  discrimination  of  mental  conditions.  Their  logic 
is,  stated  in  the  usual  way,  if  he  were  insane  at  the 
time  referred  to,  then  he  was  always  insane.     It  may  be 


DOUBTFUL   RECOVERIES.  129 

found,  frequently,  that  the  incident  or  event  which 
brought  upon  them  the  disabilities  of  insanity  only 
implied  the  exaggeration  of  some  innate  quality  of 
mind ;  and  it  is  not  strange,  under  the  circumstances, 
that  they  should  overlook  the  distinction  that  in  the 
one  case  they  lost  entirely  the  power  of  self-control 
which  they  possessed  in  the  other,  and  were  no  longer 
amenable  to  reason. 

It  may  seem  paradoxical  to  say  that  a  person  has 
recovered  who  fails  to  recognize  the  delusions  that  pos- 
sessed his  mind ;  yet  there  are  cases  where  the  patient 
has  passed  from  a  state  of  agitation,  excitement,  and 
delusion  into  one  of  calmness,  cheerful  expectation,  and 
apparent  rationality,  while  still  retaining  some  flagrant 
delusion.  With  this  exception,  his  views  are  correct 
and  clear,  all  the  mental  processes  are  well  conducted, 
apparently  ;  and  he  performs  his  part  in  the  world  as 
well  as  ever.  Such  was  the  case  of  Greenwood,  cited 
in  all  the  books  on  the  medical  jurisprudence  of  insan- 
ity, whose  will  was  the  subject  of  much  litigation. 
While  unequivocally  insane,  he  believed,  with  other 
things  equally  false,  that  his  brother  who  then  attended 
him  had  attempted  to  kill  him  by  poisoning.  This 
delusion  he  never  relinquished,  though  for  some  years 
he  practised  his  profession  as  an  advocate,  and  seemed 
to  the  world  to  be  in  the  complete  possession  of  his 
senses. 

It  is  seldom  safe  to  discharge  a  patient  while  he 
continues  to  believe  in  the  reality  of  any  single  notion 
or  occurrence  that  was  entirely  the  offspring  of  fancy, 
because  such  a  belief  indicates  morbid  action,  which, 
however  circumscribed  at  present,  is  ever  liable  to 
spread,  and  induce  farther  mental  disorder.  Indeed, 
the  evil  is  seldom  so  limited  as  it  seems  to  a  casual 


130  DOUBTFUL  RECOVERIES. 

observer.  A  long  and  close  inspection  of  the  mental 
manifestations  is  likely  to  reveal,  deeply  hidden  beneath 
the  surface,  a  broad  vein  of  unsoundness,  which  a  brief 
trial  at  large  would  display  to  the  common  gaze.  If  we 
could  predict  that  the  delusion  would  always  remain 
insulated  from  all  other  mental  processes,  as  in  Green- 
wood's case,  then  we  should  hardly  be  warranted  in 
detaining  the  patient ;  but  this  we  can  never  do,  with 
the  slightest  degree  of  confidence,  without  a  long  and 
careful  observation. 

Very  ignorant,  uncultivated  people  often  fail  to  rec- 
ognize their  delusions  as  such,  solely  from  inability  to 
distinguish  the  subjective  from  the  objective  in  their 
mental  experience.  This  trait  is  not  uncommon  among 
the  lowest  class  of  the  Irish,  who  will  talk  of  certain 
imaginary  occurrences  as  if  they  had  really  happened ; 
though  how,  they  do  not  pretend  to  know.  It  is  enough 
for  them  that  the  impressions  thus  stamped  on  their  brain 
remain  as  clear  and  vivid  as  the  most  recent  images  of 
sense. 

There  is  another  class  of  patients,  and  a  very  large 
one  too,  from  whom  we  fail  to  obtain  a  decided  recogni- 
tion of  their  mental  disorder.  Their  conduct  and  con- 
versation while  deprived  of  the  noblest  attribute  of 
their  nature  excite  so  much  unpleasant  if  not  painful 
recollection,  that  they  shrink  from  dwelling  upon  them, 
and  may  even  endeavor  to  silence  or  divert  inquiry  re- 
specting them,  by  seeming  to  deny  that  they  had  any 
serious  disorder.  I  have  often  hesitated  to  inquire  very 
minutely  respecting  certain  extravagances  of  thought 
or  feeling,  lest  I  might  hear  a  flat  denial  of  their  exist- 
ence from  patients  who  gave  every  other  indication  of 
recovery.  Indeed,  this  kind  of  reticence,  in  some 
degree,  may  be  observed  in  by  far  the  larger  part  of 


DOUBTFUL   KECOVEEIES.  131 

those  who  recover.  On  the  other  hand,  a  full,  free,  and 
earnest  recital  of  the  thoughts,  emotions,  and  acts  pro- 
duced by  the  mental  disorder,  is  not,  by  any  means,  a 
sure  indication  of  genuine  recovery. 

Another  circumstance  often  bearing  very  significantly 
on  the  question  of  recovery  is  the  duration  of  the 
disease.  The  course  of  insanity  is  much  longer  than 
that  of  most  diseases  of  apparently  equal  severity.  I  do 
not  say  it  is  never  transitory,  for  there  are  cases  enough 
on  record  to  settle  this  point  beyond  a  doubt ;  but,  with 
this  infrequent  exception,  its  duration  is  marked  rather 
by  weeks  and  months  than  by  hours  and  days.  Appar- 
ent recovery  within  the  first  six  or  eight  weeks  should 
always  be  followed  by  a  longer  probation  than  one  at  a 
later  period.  As  in  most  nervous  disorders,  the  course 
of  insanity  is  marked  by  fluctuations  in  the  severity  of 
its  movements  ;  and  the  improvements  thus  occurring 
may  often  seem  like  convalescence,  if  not  actual  recov- 
ery. When  occurring  at  an  early  period,  or  suddenly 
at  any  period,  or  soon  after  a  state  of  intensely  active 
disorder,  such  as  high  maniacal  excitement,  they  are 
seldom  permanent.  Esquirol  has  made  a  statement, 
the  correctness  of  which  my  own  observations  have 
abundantly  confirmed,  that  in  most  cases  of  active 
mania  u  a  very  marked  remission,  amounting,  perhaps, 
to  a  complete  disappearance  of  every  trait  of  disease, 
occurs  within  the  first  month  of  the  attack,  and  is  often 
followed  by  a  renewal  of  the  disease."  My  experience 
would  lead  me  to  say  that  such  is  the  result  in  by  far 
the  greater  number  of  cases.  And  I  would  also  say 
that  the  more  complete  the  remission,  the  less  likely  is 
it  to  prove  an  unequivocal  recovery.  I  call  to  mind  a 
case  in  which,  during  the  first  month,  a  remission  con- 
sisting of  the  most  rational  exercise  of  the  mind  on  all 


132  DOUBTFUL   RECOVERIES. 

subjects,  without  excitement  or  depression,  was  soon 
succeeded  by  high  maniacal  excitement,  terminating  in 
death.  True,  this  kind  of  improvement  is  of  such  brief 
duration  that  there  is  little  danger  of  the  patient's 
being  discharged  on  the  strength  of  it;  but  it  may  lead 
to  a  prognosis  that  will  cause  bitter  disappointment  and 
mortification. 

As  already  intimated,  these  remissions  are  not  con- 
fined to  the  first  month ;  nor  are  they  peculiar  to  any 
particular  form  of  disease,  though  most  common  in 
acute  mania.  They  are  not  rare  even  in  organic  affec- 
tions of  the  brain  more  or  less  affiliated  to  general 
paralysis.  A  patient  who  came  in  recently,  with  what 
seemed  to  be  simple  mania,  soon  began  to  convalesce, 
and  for  two  months  or  more  presented  not  a  trace  of 
mental  disorder.  His  conduct  and  conversation,  his 
ways  and  habits,  manners,  opinions,  and  feelings  were  as 
free  from  singularity  and  impropriety  as  they  were  in 
his  best  estate.  Having  kept  him  as  long  as  I  pleased, 
he  went  home  and  resumed  his  customary  employment. 
Three  weeks  afterwards  he  came  back  highly  excited, 
full  of  gross  delusions,  and  considerably  demented. 
Thenceforth  he  passed  through  the  ordinary  phases,  of 
organic  cerebral  affection,  and  died.  In  another  case, 
where  the  indications  of  organic  disease  were  so  strong 
from  the  beginning  that  I  gave  the  friends  the  most 
discouraging  prognosis,  the  signs  of  recovery  became 
so  satisfactory  at  last,  that  I  began  to  doubt  the  correct- 
ness of  my  diagnosis.  At  any  rate,  they  were  so  satis- 
factory to  the  friends  that  they  removed  him,  and  he 
recommenced  business.  In  the  course  of  a  few  weeks 
he  broke  down  again,  and  the  result  fully  justified  the 
original  prognosis.  A  less  degree  of  improvement  in 
this  form  of  disease  is  still  more  common,  and  often 


DOUBTFUL   RECOVERIES.  133 

leads  to  the  removal  of  the  patient  from  the  hospital,  in 
the  delusive  hope  that  a  change  of  scene  will  complete 
the  apparent  convalescence. 

I  take  the  opportunity  to  remark,  in  passing,  that,  if 
these  views  are  correct,  we  are  forced  to  believe  that 
too  many  are  discharged  from  our  hospitals  as  recov- 
ered, within  the  first  three  months  after  their  admission. 
While  admitting  that  recovery  may  not  very  unfre- 
quently  be  completed  in  that  period,  I  apprehend  that 
this  large  class  of  cases  which,  in  our  hospital  reports, 
are  placed  in  the  front  rank  of  successful  results,  must 
embrace  many  that  relapse  so  soon  after  their  discharge 
as  to  render  it  quite  certain  that  their  recovery  was 
never  complete.  It  may  have  been  only  the  remission 
so  common  in  the  early  stages  of  the  disease,  to  be  cer- 
tainly followed  by  a  renewal  of  the  disorder.  It  may 
have  been  that  condition  of  mind  resembling  recovery, 
in  which  one  essential  quality  of  the  nervous  organism 
is  wanting.  No  trace  of  disease  can  be  discerned  in 
the  conduct  or  conversation,  no  perversion  or  obtuse- 
ness  in  the  sentiments  and  emotions,  but  the  patients 
have  no  power  of  endurance.  In  the  hospital,  where 
most  of  their  movements  are  a  matter  of  routine,  ex- 
empt from  care  and  responsibility,  they  pass  along 
month  after  month,  without  let  or  hindrance  ;  but  the 
moment  they  begin  to  act  for  themselves,  to  assume 
responsibility  and  encounter  trials,  the  latent  irritability 
is  revived,  and  proceeds,  more  or  less  rapidly,  to  utter 
loss  of  self-control.  It  would  be  a  great  mistake  to  sup- 
pose that  this  condition  is  confined  to  those  who  have 
had  frequent  attacks,  and  whose  nervous  elasticity  may 
be  supposed  to  have  been  impaired  thereby.  It  is  often 
met  with  in  recent  cases,  and  should  always  be  consid- 
ered in  determining  the  question  of  recovery.     It  be- 


134  DOUBTFUL   RECOVERIES. 

comes  then  a  matter  worthy  of  our  most  serious  consid- 
eration, whether  these  early  discharges  do  not  multiply 
the  risks  of  relapse,  and,  even  when  not  followed  by 
actual  relapse,  lay  the  foundation  of  a  morbid  irritability 
which,  sooner  or  later,  is  converted  into  overt  disease. 
There  is  much  reason  to  fear  that  the  frequency  of  sec- 
ondary attacks  —  greater  in  this  country,  I  suspect,  than 
in  any  other  —  may  be  attributed,  in  a  great  degree,  to 
the  shortness  of  the  probationary  period  which  prevails 
among  us. 

Time,  of  course,  will  settle  every  doubtful  case ;  but 
this  means  of  deciding  the  question  is  not  allowed  to  us, 
and  we  are  obliged  to  come  to  a  conclusion  on  the 
strength  of  the  present  circumstances.  In  other  words, 
we  are  obliged  to  decide,  without  delay,  whether  the 
apparent  recovery  before  us  is  spurious  or  genuine.  In 
most  of  these  cases  there  may  be  found  some  trait,  inci- 
dent, or  condition,  which  properly  interpreted  may  lead 
to  the  right  conclusion.  Among  the  most  prominent  are 
a  certain  impatience,  restlessness,  and  constant  dwelling 
on  the  one  idea  of  going  home.  The  last  is  always  a  suspi- 
cious circumstance,  and  always  a  sufficient  warrant  for 
delay.  Some  manifestation  of  the  feeling  in  persons 
who  have  long  been  separated  from  their  homes,  and 
are  looking  forward  to  the  day  whicli  shall  witness  a 
renewal  of  their  happiest  relations,  would  not  be  strange. 
But  this  very  natural  trait  can  generally  be  distin- 
guished from  the  kind  of  restlessness  in  question,  upon 
a  broad  consideration  of  all  the  incidents  connected 
with  this  point.  A  person  fully  restored,  having  in 
mind  the  sufferings  he  had  experienced,  and  the  liability 
to  relapse,  might  be  supposed  to  feel  a  distrust  of  his 
power  to  maintain  his  place  under  the  trials  of  life,  to 
shrink  from  the  attempt,  and  resort  to  any  excuse  for 


DOUBTFUL   RECOVERIES.  135 

delay.  Occasionally  such  is  the  fact ;  but  in  most  cases 
a  very  different  feeling  prevails.  Most  patients  have 
little  apprehension  of  another  attack,  even  though  they 
may  already  have  suffered  many.  They  labor  under  a 
curious  obtuseness  which  incapacitates  them  from  ap- 
preciating considerations  of  the  greatest  moment  in 
respect  to  their  future  health  ;  and  the  plainest  sugges- 
tions of  reason  fall  unheeded  on  their  ears.  Rejoicing 
in  the  buoyant  sensations  of  returning  health  and  vigor, 
they  see  no  danger  and  cannot  be  convinced  that  it 
really  exists.  They  use  but  one  argument,  —  a  sort  of 
argumentum  ad  hominern,  —  and  they  care  for  no  other. 
I  never  was  better  in  my  life,  they  say,  and  why  should 
I  stay  here  ?  Now,  their  self-confidence,  however 
unsuitable,  is  quite  natural,  and  is  controlled,  for  the 
most  part,  by  a  regard  to  proprieties  and  conveniences. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  morbid  restlessness  in  question 
is  far  more  persistent,  and  out  of  all  proportion  to  the 
occasions  that  are  used  in  justification  of  it.  It  is  be- 
yond the  reach  of  argument  and  all  the  arts  of  persua- 
sion. The  most  patient  and  elaborate  exposition  of 
the  reasons  for  farther  detention  is  followed  the  next 
day  by  a  renewal  of  the  same  restlessness  and  the  same 
importunities.  This  trait  is  always  accompanied,  I 
think,  by  some  acerbity  of  feeling.  We  are  charged 
with  acting  from  unworthy  motives,  and  are  trium- 
phantly challenged  to  show  a  single  word  or  act  of  theirs 
indicative  of  insanity.  After  fully  recovering,  ,these 
patients  admit  that  their  restlessness  was  unreasonable 
and  uncontrollable,  and  wonder  they  should  have  been 
so  completely  under  its  dominion.  Such  patients  when 
discharged  often  do  well  at  last ;  but  in  a  large  propor- 
tion the  morbid  condition  which  gives  rise  to  the  feeling 
continues  after   discharge,  and  finally  reappears  in   all 


136  DOUBTFUL   RECOVERIES. 

its  original  severity.  I  recollect  the  case  of  a  ship- 
master who  was  attacked  with  acute  mania  in  conse- 
quence of  suffering  and  exposure  in  an  open  boat  after 
shipwreck.  After  some  five  or  six  weeks,  every  symp- 
tom of  mental  disease  had  disappeared,  and  his  conduct 
and  conversation  became  perfectly  correct,  except  that 
he  was  incessantly  complaining  about  being  kept  while 
he  was  never  better  in  his  life.  His  wife  yielded  to  his 
importunities  for  release,  and  about  a  month  afterwards 
she  informed  me  he  was  doing  very  well,  and  that  she 
only  regretted  not  having  removed  him  before.  I  was 
not  long  obliged,  however,  to  suspect  that  she  under- 
stood the  case  better  than  I  did ;  for  the  very  next  week 
he  came  back  quite  demented,  and  shortly  after  died. 
But  with  all  our  penetration  we  shall  sometimes  find  it 
impossible  to  decide  with  much  confidence  as  to  the 
real  significance  of  this  symptom ;  and,  speaking  for 
myself  alone,  the  best  matured  conclusion  may  prove  to 
be  wrong.  It  may  seem  no  more  than  a  pardonable 
degree  of  impatience  under  the  circumstances,  or  only 
a  trait  of  character  natural  to  the  individual  in  his  best 
estate  ;  when,  in  fact,  as  the  event  proves,  it  indicates  a 
lingering  spark  of  disease  which  the  unrestricted  liberty 
of  home  will  fan  into  a  devouring  flame.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  may  look  very  like  a  manifestation  of  disease, 
though  the  subsequent  event  leads  us  to  believe  that  it 
was  only  the  way  of  the  patient  under  any  circumstances 
of  trial. 

Excitement  or  depression,  occurring  in  connection 
with  apparent  convalescence,  is  always  a  suspicious 
circumstance.  A  little  depression  is  quite  common  in 
this  stage  of  the  disease,  and  only  indicates  the  natural 
reaction  which  might  be  expected  after  much  excite- 
ment.      But  if    the    depression    is  very   marked,    and 


DOUBTFUL   EECOYEKIES.  137 

especially  if  it  is  accompanied  by  any  degree  of  mental 
distress  or  anxiety,  it  is  an  indication  of  actual  disease, 
and  warrants  us  in  a  longer  detention  of  the  patient. 
It  may  be  followed  directly  by  recovery,  but  full  as 
likely  by  excitement ;  and  fortunate  it  is  for  the  patient 
if  these  alternations  of  excitement  and  depression  do 
not  become  habitual.  We  have  no  means  of  predicting, 
.with  any  approach  to  certainty,  the  next  phasis  after 
depression  occurring  under  the  circumstances  here 
indicated.  If  it  succeed  excitement  very  suddenly,  it 
is  more  indicative  of  farther  trouble  than  when  it  oc- 
curs gradually.  When  it  has  been  preceded  for  some 
time  by  a  very  satisfactory  state  of  mind  —  apparently 
that  of  genuine  convalescence  —  it  must  always  greatly 
embarrass  our  prognosis.  Happily,  this  conjunction  is 
not  common.  I  call  to  mind  a  case  of  puerperal  mania, 
which,  in  the  course  of  about  eight  months,  passed 
through  the  various  stages  of  raving,  calmness,  return- 
ing reason,  convalescence  and  apparently  completed 
recovery.  The  day  was  fixed  for  her  discharge,  and 
the  usual  preparations  were  begun.  For  five  or  six 
days  previous  to  the  appointed  time,  she  became  taci- 
turn and  sad,  and  manifested  no  eagerness  to  leave. 
Under  the  circumstances,  however,  it  was  thought 
better  for  her  to  go.  On  reaching  home,  she  took  to 
her  bed,  bewailing  her  own  inefficiency,  and  taking  no 
part  in  the  management  of  her  domestic  affairs.  After 
three  or  four  months  spent  in  this  manner,  she  began 
to  recover,  and  has  had  no  subsequent  attack,  though 
she  has  borne  several  children.  In  another  case,  that 
of  a  young,  unmarried  woman,  the  several  stages  of 
acute  mania  were  passed  through  in  the  course  of  a 
year.  Convalescence  began  towards  the  end  of  the 
eighth  month,  and  in  the  course  of  three  or  four  months 


138  DOUBTFUL  EECOVEEIES. 

it  became  so  firmly  established,  that  farther  stay  seemed 
unnecessary,  and  a  day  was  fixed  for  her  removal  home. 
Just  then  she  evinced  some  depression,  and  within  a 
day  or  two  committed  suicide. 

Excitement  under  similar  circumstances  is  not  so 
common,  but  it  is  equally  suspicious.  While  it  exists 
as  an  immediate  sequel  of  convalescence,  I  should  hesi- 
tate to  discharge  the  patient.  In  the  seclusion  of  a 
hospital  it  may  speedily  pass  away ;  while,  under  expos- 
ure to  trying  circumstances,  it  would,  for  the  most  part, 
steadily  increase  until  it  culminated,  perhaps,  in  a  fresh 
paroxysm  of  acute  mania.  It  certainly  is  not  always 
very  easy  to  distinguish  correctly  that  exaltation  which 
is  solely  a  matter  of  temperament  from  the  excitement 
which  reveals  the  lingering  traces  of  disease.  Bearing 
in  mind  that  real  recovery  is  generally  accompanied  by 
a  staid  and  quiet  demeanor,  we  should  always  regard 
with  distrust  a  very  different  deportment.  The  transi- 
tory character  of  the  remission  already  described  is 
sometimes  revealed  by  a  certain  exaltation  in  which  the 
tones  of  the  voice  are  loud  and  sharp,  the  movements 
brusque  and  hurried,  and  the  discourse  boastful.  No 
matter  how  clear  and  acute  the  mind  may  appear,  no 
matter  how  free  from  palpable  marks  of  disease,  if  the 
patient  is  disposed  to  talk  fast  and  loud,  to  whistle  and 
sing,  and  to  be  incessantly  on  the  qui  vive,  we  may  be 
pretty  sure  of  a  relapse. 

Hardness  of  feeling  towards  the  hospital,  the  friends, 
or  any  others  who  have  promoted  or  favored  the 
patient's  restraint,  must  always  throw  doubt  on  the 
genuineness  of  any  apparent  recovery.  One  who  is 
fully  restored  will  harbor  no  other  than  feelings  of  com- 
placency and  gratitude  towards  those  who  have  cared 
for  him  when   unable  to   care  for  himself,  and   shielded 


DOUBTFUL   RECOVERIES.  139 

him  from  a  mortifying  and  dangerous  exposure  of  his 
infirmity.  He  will  never  cease  to  entertain  the  most 
friendly  feeling  towards  those  who,  under  every  provo- 
cation calculated  to  try  their  temper  and  patience,  pur- 
sued the  mild  and  even  tenor  of  their  way,  returned 
his  abuse  with  silence  or  with  gentle  words,  and  ex- 
hausted all  the  arts  of  kindness  in  soothing  his  troubled 
spirit  and  restoring  it  to  peace  and  happiness.  In  fact, 
it  may  be  justly  suspected  that  a  patient  manifesting 
different  feelings  does  not  recognize  the  essential  fact 
that  he  has  been  insane,  and,  generally  speaking,  this 
suspicion  is  confirmed  by  subsequent  events.  Some- 
times, a  patient,  though  he  may  not  heartily  acknowl- 
edge that  he  has  been  insane,  will  admit  the  existence 
of  some  mental  disturbance  not  amounting,  however, 
to  insanity.  "  I  did  thus  and  so,  I  said  this  or  that,"  he 
says,  selecting  some  incidents  too  notorious  to  be  over- 
looked ;  "  but,"  he  asks,  borrowing  a  leaf  from  the  prac- 
tice of  the  lawyers,  "  do  you  contend  that  every  man 
who  does  that  thing,  or  says  this,  is  insane  ? "  He 
declares  that  his  confinement  was  premature,  not  war- 
ranted by  the  circumstances  of  the  case,  and  towards 
all  who  participated  in  the  measure  he  has  no  other 
than  feelings  of  indignation  and  wrath.  Or  he  may  say, 
"I  admit  that  for  a  few  days  I  was  incapable  of  taking 
care  of  myself,  and  my  friends  did  right  in  placing  me 
in  a  hospital.  But  I  soon  came  to  myself,  and  during 
the  weeks  and  months  that  have  elapsed  since  then, 
there  has  not  been  the  slightest  reason  for  my  confine- 
ment. In  keeping  me  here,  you  have  been  guilty  of 
high-handed  oppression."  The  practical  question  here 
is,  whether  this  is  a  transitory  stage  of  disease,  to  be 
succeeded  by  some  change  for  the  better  or  worse,  or 
only  a  phasis  of  character  in  which  normal  and  abnor- 


140  DOUBTFUL   RECOVERIES. 

mal   elements  exist   in  very  uncertain  proportions.     In 
order  to  decide  this  question,  the  first  step  is  to  ascer- 
tain the  natural  temper  and  disposition  of  the  patient, 
and  oftentimes  we  need  go  no  farther.     If,  in  his  best 
estate,  he  were  accustomed  to  look  on  every  one  who 
stood  in  his  way  as  an  enemy,  to  be  arrogant  and  exact- 
ing, to  find  fault  with  every  attempt  to  serve  and  please 
him,  and   to  lie  without  scruple  whenever  a  lie  would 
seem  to  serve  his  purpose,  then  it  can  scarcely  be  con- 
sidered  as    entirely    the    result  of    disease,  if    in    the 
hospital  he   is   full   of  resentment   towards   those   who 
have  done  him  the  greatest  possible  service,  grumbling 
and   complaining  about   every  arrangement,  rude    and 
vulgar  in  his  deportment,  and   totally  regardless  of  the 
truth.     Instead   of  passing  through  a  stage  of  disease, 
he  is  not  very  far  from  his  natural  condition.     In  fact, 
patients  of  this  description,  who  are  far  more  numer- 
ous than  the  unprofessional  world  is  aware  of,  must  be 
regarded  as  having  recovered  to  a  certain  point.     That 
is,  the   more  prominent  traits   of  insanity  have  disap- 
peared, their  conduct  is  tolerably  correct,  and  they  are 
capable  of  managing  their  own  affairs  with  their  cus- 
tomary ability.     To  keep  them  in  a  hospital  until  they 
dismiss  their  angry  feelings  would  be  simply  imprison- 
ment   for   life.       Beyond   this    point   they    never   can 
recover,  and   it  is  better  that  they  should  be   allowed 
the   utmost  freedom   from   restraint.     It  is  one   of  the 
disadvantages  experienced  by  hospitals  for  the  insane, 
that  the  true  character  of  this  class  of  patients  is  not, 
and  probably  never  will  be,  understood  by  the  world  at 
large.     With    sanity   enough    to    make   up    a    plausible 
story,  they  pour  their  grievances  into  the   public  ear, 
and  succeed  in  creating  the  impression  that  they  have 
suffered    indignity   and    wrong   from    those    who    were 


DOUBTFUL   RECOVERIES.  141 

specially  bound  to  shield  and  protect  them.  Towards 
the  institution  which  received  them  within  its  protect- 
ing arms  when  their  malady  rendered  all  domestic 
arrangements  ineffectual,  and  led  them  by  ways  of  gen- 
tleness and  skill  to  as  complete  a  possession  of  reason 
as  their  unfortunate  mental  constitution  would  allow, 
they  are  always  particularly  bitter.  It  would  be  satis- 
factory to  know  the  exact  proportion  in  which  the  two 
elements  of  actual  delusion  and  conscious  moral  ob- 
liquity enter  into  the  composition  of  this  mental  con- 
dition ;  but  this  will  ever  remain,  no  doubt,  one  of  the 
unsolved  problems  of  pathological  psychology.  That 
they  are  always  both  there,  in  some  uncertain  propor- 
tion, is  a  fact  beyond  dispute. 

In  females,  the  menstrual  period  may  be  accompanied 
by  abnormal  excitement  after  convalescence  has  seemed 
to  be  fairly  established.  By  injudicious  management, 
this  condition  may  be  so  aggravated  as  to  become 
uncontrollable.  It  is  a  safe  rule,  therefore,  never  to 
discharge  a  female  patient  until  the  menstrual  function 
is  performed  without  being  accompanied  by  mental  dis- 
turbance. 

I  have  thus  pointed  out  some  of  the  conditions  and 
incidents  that  throw  a  doubt  on  the  question  of  recov- 
ery. However  much  or  little  assistance  may  be  derived 
from  these  hints,  we  shall  occasionally,  in  spite  of  all  our 
skill  and  the  utmost  care,  fail  to  discover  the  smoulder- 
ing embers  of  disease  on  the  one  hand,  or  on  the  other 
commit  the  less  likely  and  less  mischievous  mistake  of 
extending  the  period  of  probation  beyond  the  needful 
limit. 


DELUSIONS   AND   HALLUCINATIONS. 


On  the  trial  of  Hadfield,  eight  and  sixty  years  ago, 
for  shooting  at  the  king,  his  counsel,  Mr.  Erskine,  laid 
down  the  doctrine  that  delusion  is  that  quality  of  insan- 
ity which  renders  a  person  irresponsible  for  his  acts. 
Though  never  established  by  any  judicial  decision,  yet 
announced  as  it  was  by  the  acknowledged  leader  of  the 
English  bar,  in  a  case  that  appeared  by  universal  con- 
sent to  justify  its  correctness,  it  has,  undoubtedly, 
exerted  an  influence  on  judicial  opinions,  and  may  be 
considered  as  the  first  considerable  innovation  upon  the 
rules  of  the  common  law  respecting  insanity  in  connec- 
tion with  crime.  For  nearly  half  a  century,  its  correct- 
ness, as  a  rule  of  law,  went  unchallenged  in  any  British 
or  American  court  of  justice  ;  but  correct  as  it  seemed, 
abstractly  considered,  it  frequently  proved  unsuitable 
for  practical  application,  owing  to  some  uncertainty  as 
to  the  true  meaning  of  the  trait  in  question.  Many 
attempts  have  been  made  to  remedy  the  deficiency ; 
but,  being  suggested  rather  by  metaphysical  speculation 
than  by  the  study  of  morbid  psychology,  they  invariably 
failed  to  meet  the  requirements  of  any  but  the  particu- 
lar case  in  hand. 

One  writer  defines  delusion  to  be  "  the  belief  of  facts 


DELUSIONS   AND    HALLUCINATIONS.  143 

which  no  sane  man  would  believe."  Another  defines 
it  to  be  "  a  belief  in  something  extravagant,  having  no 
existence  whatever,  and  out  of  which  the  person  cannot 
be  reasoned  by  any  conceivable  degree  of  evidence." 
Another  says,  "  delusion  is  a  belief  of  facts  which  no 
rational  reason  would  have  believed."  According  to 
these  definitions,  Columbus  must  have  been  laboring 
under  a  delusion  in  thinking  he  should  discover  a  new 
world;  for  such  a  belief  was  certainly  extravagant, — 
one  which  the  rational  men  of  his  day  rejected,  but 
which  he  could  not  be  reasoned  out  of.  Many  a  worthy 
man  entertains  political  or  religious  opinions  which,  to 
some  of  his  neighbors,  seem  to  be  the  height  of  folly ; 
and  holds  them,  too,  with  a  strength  of  conviction  that 
no  evidence  can  impair.  In  these  definitions,  it  will  be 
observed,  the  very  point  to  be  proved  is  assumed.  To 
say  that  a  certain  belief  is  a  delusion  because  no  sane 
man  would  entertain  it,  is  just  a  begging  of  the  ques- 
tion. Another  says,  a  delusion  is  a  belief  in  something 
impossible.  But  who  is  to  decide  what  is  and  what 
is  not  impossible?  What  is  impossible  to  one  man  is 
possible  to  another.  Belief  in  something  which  is  im- 
possible in  the  nature  of  things,  is,  unquestionably,  a 
delusion;  but  every  delusion  is  not  a  belief  in  something 
clearly  impossible.  Many  a  delusion  consists  in  believ- 
ing, not  something  impossible,  but  something  without 
any  objective  foundation.  A  man  believes  that  he  has 
fifty  thousand  dollars  on  deposit  in  a  certain  bank ;  but 
although  a  bank  deposit  is  not  an  impossible  thing,  yet 
as  this  person  never  had  a  deposit  in  any  bank,  having 
always  been  little  better  than  a  pauper,  such  a  notion  is, 
nevertheless,  a  delusion.  So,  although  a  delusion  may 
be  defined  very  justly  to  be  a  belief  in  something  impos- 
sible, it  must  be  understood  that  the  impossibility  may 


144  DELUSIONS   AND    HALLUCINATIONS. 

be,  not  in  the  nature  of  things,  but  in  the  circumstances 
of  the  case.  With  this  qualification,  the  definition  may 
be  found  applicable  in  practice,  with  fewer  exceptions 
than  any  other.  Of  course,  instances  will  occasionally 
occur,  where  it  is  questionable  whether  the  circum- 
stances are  such  as  to  render  the  thing  believed  im- 
possible, which  only  shows  that  psychological  definitions 
are  not  quite  so  clear  and  precise  as  those  of  geometry 
and  algebra. 

The  current  philosophy  respecting  the  nature  of 
belief  has  not  led  to  very  clear  conceptions  on  this  sub- 
ject. The  tendency  is  to  depreciate  every  other  ele- 
ment of  belief  as  compared  with  that  of  the  evidence 
of  the  senses.  To  a  great  extent  human  belief  must 
rest  on  that  foundation;  but  much  of  the  belief  which 
determines  the  opinions  and  conduct  of  men  springs 
from  the  prevalent  philosophy,  from  tradition,  from  the 
force  of  imitation,  from  superstition,  fancy,  or  fashion, 
from  a  nervous  temperament,  and  mental  eccentricities. 
Daily  experience  shows  that,  under  the  influence  of  such 
causes,  no  belief  is  too  absurd  and  groundless,  even  for 
cultivated  minds.  The  history  of  human  progress  in  its 
various  phases  shows  that  the  accredited  belief  of  one 
age  becomes  an  indication  of  insanity  in  the  next ;  and 
the  psychological  student  who  extends  his  observa- 
tions beyond  himself  into  the  highways  and  byways  of 
society,  into  the  purlieus  of  vice  and  the  wards  of  the 
insane  hospital,  wherever  the  normal  activities  of  the 
mind  have  been  disturbed  by  the  deteriorating  influence 
of  a  faulty  hygiene,  of  bad  blood,  of  education  in  vice, 
of  indulgence  in  drink,  continued  through  several  gen- 
erations, will  find  at  every  turn  how  closely  the  domains 
of  sanity  and  insanity  lie  to  each  other. 

In  order  to  determine  whether  a  certain  belief  is  a 


DELUSIONS   AND    HALLUCINATIONS.  145 

veritable  delusion,  or  only  the  mistake  of  a  sane  mind, 
it  may  be  necessary  to  scrutinize  the  psychological  char- 
acter and  experience  of  the  individual  who  entertains  it. 
Such  a  scrutiny  may  show  that  what  seemed  to  be  the 
offspring  of  disease, —  what  would  have  been  unequivo- 
cal delusion,  under  different  circumstances,  —  was  only 
a  mistake  of  ignorance,  a  sottish  superstition,  a  freak 
of  eccentricity,  or  the  suggestion  of  a  peculiar  tempera- 
ment. A  single  instance  will  sufficiently  illustrate  the 
significance  of  these  remarks. 

In  litigated  cases  of  insanity  where  delusion  is  al- 
leged, the  medical  witness  seldom  escapes  being  asked 
if  he  thinks  Martin  Luther  was  insane  for  having  be- 
lieved that  he  was  sometimes  visited  by  the  devil  in 
person,  and  that  on  one  occasion  he  hurled  his  ink-horn 
at  him  and  drove  him  out  of  the  room.  This  the  law- 
yers regard  as  an  admirable  dilemma,  on  either  horn  of 
which  the  expert  will  find  an  uncomfortable  seat.  If  he 
says  no,  the  answer  conflicts  with  some  definition  of 
delusion  which  he  has  already  given ;  and  if  he  says 
yes,  it  is  equivalent  to  stultifying  himself.  Thus  the 
counsel  achieves  an  easy  victory  over  the  expert,  who, 
while  perfectly  aware  of  his  awkward  predicament,  is 
sorely  puzzled  how  to  account  for  it ;  for  his  opponent's 
facts  are  all  correct,  and  his  conclusions  logically  drawn. 

Of  course,  the  scenes  related  by  Luther  were  all  a 
figment  of  the  brain  ;  but,  at  the  worst,  it  was  only 
a  hallucination,  not  a  delusion.  These  differ  from  each 
other  in  this  respect,  that  the  false  belief  implied  in  the 
former  is  connected  with  impressions  made  on  one  or 
more  of  the  senses,  and  does  not  necessarily  prove,  as 
the  latter  does,  any  derangement  of  the  understanding. 
When  a  man  declares  that  he  hears  a  voice  speaking  to 
him  from  the  ceiling  of  his  room,  and  persists  in  the 

10 


146  DELUSIONS   AND   HALLUCINATIONS. 

belief,  he  is  certainly  insane  ;  but  if  he  recognizes  and 
admits  his  mistake,  it  is  only  a  casual  and  temporary 
derangement  of  the  senses,  which  cannot,  in  any  proper 
use  of  language,  be  called  insanity.  Even  admitting 
that  Luther  persisted  to  the  last  in  believing  that  there 
was  no  optical  deception  in  the  case,  and  that  the  devil, 
hoof,  horns,  and  all,  actually  entered  the  room  where  he 
was  writing,  the  proof  is  not  complete  that  this  belief 
was  equivalent  to  a  delusion.  A  close  inspection  of  it 
shows  that  it  Avas  only  a  mistake  arising  from  certain 
peculiarities  of  opinion,  temperament,  and  cerebral 
activity,  and  wanting  the  indispensable  element  of  in- 
sanity. It  was,  certainly,  no  delusion  to  believe  in  the 
personality  of  the  devil.  It  has  been  the  doctrine  of 
the  church  in  all  ages,  and  men  have  been  fond  of  repre- 
senting him  as  going  about  like  a  roaring  lion  seeking 
whom  he  may  devour.  Stories  of  his  bodily  appearance 
among  men  have  always  been  current,  and  credited  by 
the  ignorant  and  vulgar,  if  not  by  the  cultivated  and  re- 
fined. His  visits  have  not  been  confined  to  members  of 
this  or  that  church,  nor  has  his  reception  differed  writh 
their  modes  of  faith.  While  the  reformer  salutes  him 
with  his  familiar  weapon,  —  that  weapon  by  which  he 
spreads  consternation  among  his  foes, —  St.  Dunstan 
tweaks  his  nose  with  a  pair  of  red-hot  tongs.  Indeed, 
in  the  Middle  Ages,  the  devil's  doings  on  earth  were  a 
favorite  theme  of  the  clergy,  whereby  they  hoped  to 
terrify  the  sinner  and  strengthen  his  sense  of  depend- 
ence on  them.  Legends  of  his  pranks  were  rehearsed 
at  every  fireside  and  social  gathering,  and  no  philo- 
sophic doubts  arose  to  weaken  the  intensity  of  this 
belief.  Then  as  now  he  was  regarded  as  at  the  bottom 
of  all  the  mischief  in  the  wTorld,  the  only  difference 
being  that  while  it  is  with  us,  generally,  a  merely  spec- 


DELUSIONS   AND   HALLUCINATIONS.  147 

ulative  belief,  like  that  of  an  old  superstition  which 
reason  discards,  but  which  maintains  its  hold  on  the 
mind  by  the  force  of  early  impressions,  it  was  with  the 
people  of  those  times  a  real,  active,  earnest  belief,  veri- 
fied by  many  a  man's  personal  experience.  From  a 
belief  in  his  personal  existence  and  his  license  to  do 
mischief,  to  that  of  his  personal  bodily  presence  among 
men,  was  but  a  step.  Considering  the  power  with  which 
he  was  endowed  and  the  great  purposes  that  might  be  ful- 
filled by  an  actual  visitation,  its  possibility  could  hardly  be 
questioned.  That  Luther  should  have  so  believed,  there 
were  peculiar  reasons  over  and  above  those  of  a  general 
nature.  Though  an  energetic  reformer,  he  was  no  phi- 
losopher like  Erasmus,  and  therefore  was  quite  satisfied 
with  the  popular  belief  of  his  day.  He  never  doubted 
that,  in  the  great  contest  on  which  he  had  entered,  the 
powers  both  of  earth  and  hell  were  arrayed  against  him, 
and  the  pope  and  his  priests  were  not  more  clearly  dis- 
cerned in  the  opposing  ranks  than  the  devil  and  his 
angels.  Thus  far,  certainly,  there  was  no  delusion. 
He  believed  no  more  than  everybody  else  believed.  If 
there  was  any  delusion  at  all  in  the  case,  it  consisted 
in  going  one  step  farther,  —  in  realizing  his  theoretical 
belief.  He  thought  he  saw  the  devil  with  his  bodily 
eye,  and  felt  his  hot  breath  upon  his  cheeks.  But  this 
was  not  necessarily  a  delusion.  It  might  have  been 
merely  a  strong  impression  received  in  a  moment  of 
cerebral  excitement,  when  the  nervous  susceptibility 
was  sharpened  by  earnest  meditation,  by  a  glow  of  en- 
thusiasm not  many  steps  removed  from  the  grossest 
fanaticism,  and  by  a  well-grounded  assurance  that  his 
foes  would  leave  no  stone  unturned  to  effect  his  ruin. 
Under  such  circumstances,  the  inward  readily  becomes 
the  outward ;  the  intense  conception  takes  on  a  bodily 


148  DELUSIONS   AND   HALLUCINATIONS. 

form ;  in  one  word,  to  use  a  metaphysical  phrase,  the 
subjective  becomes  the  objective.  That  such  was 
actually  the  fact  in  Luther's  case  is  rendered  still  more 
probable  by  other  incidents  in  his  psychological  expe- 
rience. He  complained  that  the  devil  lay  by  his  side 
when  in  bed  at  night,  and  caused  him  more  annoyance 
than  his  beloved  Catharine  caused  him  joy.  Not  only 
that,  but  the  devil  would  keep  him  awake  disputing  on 
religious  subjects,  and  these  disputes  he  reported  in  full. 
This  phenomenon  is  admirably  illustrated  by  Shakes- 
peare, in  the  case  of  Macbeth,  who  saw  a  dagger  in  the 
air  with  its  handle  turned  towards  him.  Indeed,  most 
persons,  I  apprehend,  can  call  to  mind  something  of  a 
similar  kind  in  their  own  experience,  and  many  remark- 
able stories  may  be  found  in  the  books.  Nobody  ever 
regarded  Macbeth  as  insane,  and  yet,  psychologically 
considered,  Luther's  case  was  precisely  similar. 

It  may  be  objected  that  as  Luther  never  recognized 
the  true  nature  of  the  apparition,  and  never  admitted 
that  he  was  deceived,  therefore,  according  to  present 
definitions,  he  must  be  regarded  as  insane.  The  objec- 
tion is  well  taken ;  but  a  careful  examination  of  it  will 
enable  us,  I  doubt  not,  to  remove  the  difficulties  which 
it  implies.  It  has  been  just  explained  how  the  decep- 
tion arose ;  that  is,  in  consequence  of  a  conjunction  of 
circumstances  not  incompatible  with  entire  soundness 
of  mind.  That  Luther  did  not  so  understand  the  mat- 
ter only  shows  that  he  was  no  philosopher,  as  I  have 
already  remarked,  and  that  to  his  apprehension  the  inci- 
dents in  question  were  within  the  line  of  natural  occur- 
rences. To  believe  in  the  reality  of  a  hallucination 
necessarily  implies  delusion  and  insanity  only  when  it 
refers  to  something  impossible  either  in  the  nature  of 
things  or  the  circumstances  of  the  case.     One  who  be- 


DELUSIONS   AND   HALLUCINATIONS.  149 

lieves  his  legs  are  made  of  glass,  or  that  his  head  has 
been  turned  round,  is  insane  and  nothing  less.  He  does 
not  even  pretend  to  give  a  reason  for  his  belief.  It  is 
so,  and  he  knows  it  is  so.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the 
thing  believed  is  not  thus  impossible,  it  may  indicate 
only  an  error  of  opinion  which  the  person  shares  in 
common  with  others  of  undoubted  sanity.  Thus  the 
two  elements  of  Luther's  belief  are  easily  accounted  for 
without  resorting  to  the  theory  of  insanity.  The  appa- 
rition itself  was  the  result  of  certain  cerebral  conditions 
of  a  casual,  transient  nature ;  and,  secondly,  the  persist- 
ent conviction  of  its  reality  was  consistent  with  the 
common  belief. 

The  world  has  always  been  willing  to  admit  that 
supernatural  occurrences  are  within  the  limits  of  possi- 
bility, and  that  they  have  actually  taken  place.  How 
they  are  to  be  distinguished  from  those  which,  while 
they  appear  to  be  such  at  first  sight,  are,  in  fact,  the 
offspring  of  cerebral  disturbance,  is  a  question  not  easily 
answered.  As  yet  there  is  scarcely  the  beginning  of 
an  approach  to  unanimity  of  opinion  respecting  it.  In 
practice,  it  has  been  generally  decided  rather  by  favor- 
ite habits  of  thinking  than  by  any  fixed  rules  of  philoso- 
phizing. The  celebrated  vision  of  Colonel  Gardiner,  in 
whicli  he  saw  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  on  a  cross,  and 
heard  him  reproach  him  for  his  crimes,  is  described  by 
his  pious  biographer,  Dr.  Doddridge,  as  sent  by  God. 
Few,  I  imagine,  would  attribute  to  such  an  origin  the 
vision  of  Lord  Herbert,  who,  while  hesitating  to  publish 
a  book  he  had  just  completed  against  the  Christian  re- 
ligion, made  a  formal  appeal  to  the  Deity,  praying  that 
he  might  be  directed  by  some  celestial  sign  whether  he 
should  or  should  not  print  it,  and  received  a  favorable 
response  in  an  audible  voice  from  the  heavens. 


150  DELUSIONS   AND   HALLUCINATIONS. 

We  know  very  well  that  hallucinations  have  been 
exhibited  by  men  of  great  mental  endowments  and 
activity,  as  insulated  facts  having  little  or  no  connec- 
tion with  the  ordinary  mental  movements.  Dr.  John- 
son, while  walking  in  the  street,  thought  he  heard  the 
voice  of  his  mother,  then  many  miles  away,  calling  to 
him,  "  Sam,  Sam."  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  after  being 
engaged  many  hours  in  painting,  and  then  walking  in 
the  streets,  said  that  the  lamp-posts  seemed  to  him  to  be 
trees  and  the  men  and  women  moving  shrubs.  Silvio 
Pellico  had  hallucinations  in  prison.  He  heard  groans 
and  stifled  laughs.  It  seemed  to  him  that  while  sitting 
at  the  table  some  one  plucked  him  by  his  coat,  and  at- 
tempted to  blow  out  his  light.  While  young,  when  in  a 
room  alone  at  night,  without  any  light,  he  saw  phantoms 
all  around  him,  and  even  after  the  lights  came  he  would 
see  them  in  the  dark  corners. 

In  most,  if  not  all,  of  these  cases,  there  was,  undoubt- 
edly, some  cerebral  defect;  but,  although  hallucinations 
may  indicate  that  the  highest  quality  and  condition  of 
the  brain  are  not  present,  yet  they  do  not  imply  un- 
soundness,—  insanity.  In  fact,  Moreau  de  Tours  con- 
siders them  a  proof  in  favor  of  his  theory,  that  insanity 
and  genius  spring  from  cerebral  conditions  essentially 
alike.1  In  some  of  the  cases  just  mentioned,  the  defect 
was  an  insane  temperament,  —  that  constitution  of  mind 
in  which  there  is  an  hereditary  tendency  to  insanity 
indicated  by  singularities  of  conduct,  opinion,  manner; 
in  some,  it  was  a  high  degree  of  nervous  susceptibility 
readily  inducing  cerebral  movements  of  an  extraordi- 
nary character ;  in  some,  it  was  a  casual  determination 
of  blood  to  the  brain  ;  and  in  some  it  was  manifested  by 

1  La  Psychologie  Morbitle.     Paris  :  1859. 


DELUSIONS    AND    HALLUCINATIONS.  151 

epilepsy  or  other  nervous  disorder.  Luther's  case  fur- 
nishes no  exception  to  the  general  rule  ;  for,  though  tech- 
nically sound,  it  can  hardly  be  doubted  that  the  genius 
of  the  great  reformer  was  of  that  kind  which  is  nearly 
allied  to  insanity.  The  fact  need  not  be  regarded  as 
derogating  from  his  mental  ability,  for  it  may  have  fitted 
him  all  the  better  for  the  part  he  was  called  to  perform. 
A  man  of  cooler  passions  and  less  intense  conceptions 
might  have  written  books  less  offensive  to  a  refined 
taste,  and  avoided  some  injudicious  courses,  but  proved 
unequal  to  the  internecine  war  which  any  determined 
attempt  at  reformation  was  sure  to  provoke.  In  such 
conflicts  it  is  not  always  the  well-balanced  minds  that 
achieve  the  noblest  victories.  There,  it  would  seem 
as  if  the  individual  must  be  moved  by  the  quicker  and 
stronger  impulses  that  proceed,  if  not  from  disease,  yet 
from  some  abnormal  condition  very  like  it. 

I  have  dwelt  on  the  case  of  Luther,  not  so  much 
because  it  represents  a  considerable  class  as  because  it 
indicates  the  line  of  inquiry  on  which  all  of  a  doubtful 
origin  should  be  examined.  It  gives  us  a  clew  to  the 
follies  of  witchcraft  and  to  those  popular  delusions 
which  prevailed  epidemically  in  the  fifteenth,  sixteenth, 
and  seventeenth  centuries.  Witchcraft,  for  instance, 
was  a  matter  of  popular  belief.  The  clergy  preached 
it,  the  courts  punished  it,  and  the  Bible  was  supposed 
to  teach  it.  Few  doubted  it,  and  fewer  still  ventured 
even  to  whisper  their  doubts.  The  first  step  thus  ac- 
complished, the  next  was  not  difficult.  The  arts  of  the 
devil  and  the  malicious  acts  of  his  deluded  followers, 
the  compact  written  in  blood  and  the  hellish  orgies  of 
the  witch-sabbath,  the  riding  through  the  air  on  broom- 
sticks, the  witch  marks  found  on  the  person,  the  potent 
efficacy  of  prayer  and  of  the  utterance  of  sacred  names, 


152  DELUSIONS   AND  HALLUCINATIONS. 

—  all  these  were  topics  of  conversation  in  the  family 
circle  and  in  social  gatherings,  exciting  wonder  and 
awe,  and  leaving  impressions  never  to  be  effaced. 
With  few  books  and  no  newspapers,  with  scarcely  any 
interchange  of  ideas  beyond  a  very  limited  circle,  with 
the  hardships  incident  to  a  new  settlement,  the  habitual 
dread  of  hostile  neighbors,  and  the  gloom  of  the  sur- 
rounding forest,  all  combining  to  exclude  the  joyous 
and  hopeful  aspects  of  life,  it  is  just  what  might  have 
been  expected,  that,  being  thus  early  and  constantly 
familiarized  with  the  wondrous  scenes  of  witchcraft, 
they  should  have  become,  at  last,  so  vivid  to  the  minds 
of  our  New  England  forefathers,  as  to  assume,  occa- 
sionally, the  appearance  of  an  objective  reality.  For 
this  there  was  only  needed,  singly  or  collectively,  a 
constitutional  tendency  to  hysteria  or  insanity,  an  ardent 
imagination  kindled  solely  by  such  material  as  witch- 
craft lore  could  furnish,  and  that  propensity  to  imitation 
and  thirst  for  notoriety  which  act  so  large  a  part  in 
producing  eccentric  mental  movements,  especially  in 
the  female  sex.  Thus  was  the  second  step  accom- 
plished, and  all  without  the  occurrence  of  proper 
insanity. 

Many  false  beliefs  springing  from  a  coarse  supersti- 
tion can  be  distinguished  from  genuine  delusions  only 
by  a  careful  investigation  of  the  individual's  mental 
habits  and  associations.  The  difficulty  of  making  this 
distinction  is  sometimes  increased  by  the  fact  that  such 
beliefs  may  have  been  modified  and  made  the  ground  of 
criminal  conduct  by  the  presence  of  actual  disease.  A 
colored  man  who  once  came  under  my  charge  had  killed 
his  mother  in  a  paroxysm  of  insanity.  When  asked, 
after  recovery,  what  prompted  him  to  commit  such  a 
horrid  deed,  he  replied  that  he  thought  she  was  work- 


DELUSIONS   AXD   HALLUCESTATIOXS.  153 

ing  some  fatal  spell  of  witchcraft  upon  him,  and  there- 
fore lie  acted  in  self-defence.  On  further  inquiry,  how- 
ever, it  appeared  that,  following  the  traditions  of  his 
race,  he  had  always  believed  in  witchcraft,  and  had 
always  suspected,  if  not  believed,  that  his  mother  prac- 
tised it.  So  that  the  belief  which  led  him  to  kill  his 
mother  was  not  a  delusion  ;  and  yet  it  was  none  the 
less  a  valid  excuse  for  the  crime,  for  the  reason  that 
while  the  belief  was,  ordinarily,  passive  and  harmless, 
it  became,  under  the  excitement  of  a  maniacal  paroxysm, 
an  incentive  to  a  most  revolting  murder. 

For  the  most  part,  the  true  character  of  a  false  belief 
may  be  inferred  from  the  accompanying  traits  and  inci- 
dents. A  single,  independent,  solitary  delusion,  accom- 
panied with  no  other  deviation  from  the  normal  condition, 
is  a  rare  occurrence.  It  is  usually  associated  with 
other  delusions  or  singularities  of  thought,  with  pecul- 
iar ways  and  manners,  with  strange  and  irrelevant 
conduct.  When  any  of  these  traits  are  present,  there 
needs  no  refinement  of  definition  to  convince  us  that  we 
have  to  deal  with  a  genuine  delusion.  And  yet  we  are 
hardly  ready  to  accept  the  proposition  of  Dr.  Forbes 
Winslow,  "  that  no  notion  of  the  mind,  however  ridicu- 
lous, fallacious,  and  absurd,  should  be  admitted  to  be  a 
delusion  or  evidence  of  unsound  mind,  unless  it  be 
obviously  and  unmistakably  the  product  of  a  diseased 
intellect. "  But  Dr.  Winslow's  large  experience  must 
have  made  him  acquainted  with  cases  of  unquestionable 
delusion  unaccompanied  by  any  other  mental  or  bodily 
ailment.  Even  when  accompanied  by  other  minor  dis- 
turbances, it  is  not  a  very  philosophical  proceeding  to 
make  them  the  proof  of  the  principal  and  prominent 
one.  If  he  means  to  derive  the  evidence  of  disease 
from   the   quality  of  the  act  which    springs   from    the 


154  DELUSIONS   AND    HALLUCINATIONS. 

delusion,  as  he  may  very  justly,  we  can  only  say  that 
such  an  inference  would  receive  little  countenance  from 
the  courts. 

There  is  another  phase  of  belief  of  great  medico-legal 
importance,  which  often  proves  no  less  embarrassing 
than  delusions.  1  refer  to  such  notions  as  are  charac- 
terized less  by  false  belief  than  by  singularity  and  ex- 
travagance to  a  degree  that  may  seem  incompatible  with 
soundness  of  mind.  No  rule  or  definition  will  enable 
us  to  distinguish  such  as  spring  from  insanity  and  such 
as  are  only  the  freaks  of  what  is  called  eccentricity. 
The  reason  is,  that  there  is  really  no  dividing  line  be- 
tween these  two  mental  conditions.  The  latter  may 
exist  from  childhood  and  continue  for  life ;  but  we  know 
that  it  is  often  the  precursor  of  insanity,  and  no  amount 
of  skill  or  sagacity  can  determine  the  limits  of  the 
transition  period.  To  avoid  mistake  as  far  as  possible, 
we  must  be  guided  by  the  antecedents  of  the  person, 
by  an  enlarged  knowledge  of  mental  disease,  and  espe- 
cially of  diversities  of  character,  always  bearing  in  mind 
what  our  experience  of  men  teaches,  that  very  strange 
opinions  have  been  entertained  by  persons  of  unques- 
tionable sanity.  We  are  not  too  readily  to  pronounce  a 
man  insane  because  he  professes  views  that  may  be  at 
variance  with  our  notions  of  moral  propriety.  They 
may  confirm  the  suspicion  of  insanity  raised  by  other 
circumstances.  Such  is  the  view  of  an  eminent  Amer- 
ican jurist,  Judge  Redfield  (On  the  Law  of  Wills,  83), 
in  commenting  on  an  English  case  (Morgan  v.  Boys). 
A  will  was  contested  on  the  ground  of  insanity,  the 
proof  of  which  was  to  be  found  in  one  of  its  dispositions, 
that  his  executors  should  "  cause  some  parts  of  his 
bowels  to  be  converted  into  fiddle-strings,  that  others 
should   be   sublimed  into   smelling  salts,  and   that   the 


DELUSIONS   AND   HALLUCINATIONS.  155 

remainder  of  his  body  should  be  vitrified  into  lenses  for 
optical  purposes."  In  a  letter  attached  to  the  will,  the 
testator  said:  u  The  world  may  think  this  to  be  done  in  a 
spirit  of  singularity  or  whim,  but  I  have  a  mortal  aver- 
sion to  funeral  pomp,  and  I  wish  my  body  to  be  con- 
verted into  purposes  useful  to  mankind."  The  Judge 
does  not  insist  "that  the  mere  absurdity  and  irreverence 
of  the  mode  of  bestowing  his  own  body  as  a  sacrifice 
to  the  interests  of  science  and  art,  in  so  bold  and  awful 
a  mode,  was  to  be  regarded  as  plenary  evidence  of  men- 
tal aberration,"  but  he  thinks  that  a  jury  would  be  very 
likely  to  regard  it  in  this  light  —  and  not  unjustly  — 
in  case  of  an  unnatural  or  unofficious  testament.  w  The 
man  who  has  no  more  respect  for  himself  or  for  Chris- 
tian burial,  than  this  will  indicates,  has  no  just  claim  to 
the  regard  or  respect  of  others."  Still,  it  is  to  be  con- 
sidered that  the  present  mode  of  disposing  of  the 
body  is  not  so  strongly  fixed  in  the  instincts  or  custom 
of  mankind  as  to  prevent  an  occasional  deviation,  under 
the  influence  of  some  potent  motive,  like  a  devotion  to 
science,  a  contempt  of  vulgar  prejudices,  a  foolish  but 
not  diseased  love  of  notoriety.  Jeremy  Bentham 
directed  his  body  to  be  dissected,  and  accordingly  it 
made  its  appearance  on  the  table  of  one  of  the  anatom- 
ical theatres  of  London.  A  distinguished  surgeon  of 
Massachusetts  ordered  that  his  skeleton  should  be  pre- 
pared in  the  usual  way,  and  placed  in  the  museum  of  an 
institution  of  which  he  was  President.  A  few  years 
since  an  Englishman,  who  had  lived  much  in  the  East 
and  professed  his  belief  in  the  Mahometan  religion,  left 
a  will,  bequeathing  his  property,  with  the  exception  of 
various  legacies,  to  the  poor  of  Constantinople,  and  also 
towards  erecting  a  cenotaph  in  that  city,  inscribed  with 
his  name,  and  bearing  a  light  continually  burning  there- 


156  DELUSIONS   AND  HALLUCINATIONS. 

in.  A  thorough  review  of  the  habits  and  opinions  of 
the  testator  showed  that  there  was  nothing  strange  or 
absurd  in  this  bequest,  and  it  was  finally  admitted  to 
probate,     (Austen  v.  Graham,  29  Eng.  L.  &  Eq.  38.) 

A  remarkable  case  was  recently  published  in  the 
Annates  Medico- Psychologiques  for  July,  1866,  under  the 
title  "  Partnership  with  God,'7  that  is  worthy  of  an 
extended  notice  in  a  paper  like  this,  because  it  illus- 
trates very  strikingly  the  principles  that  should  govern 
our  judgment  in  this  class  of  cases.  In  1861  there  died 
at  Neufchatel  a  notary,  Isaac  Yaugneux,  eighty-two  years 
old,  married,  but  childless.  He  devised  his  property  to 
his  wife,  who  died  four  years  after,  and  she  devised  it  to 
her  niece,  who,  when  quite  young,  had  been  adopted  by 
them.  Among  her  uncle's  papers  this  niece  found  one 
sealed  up,  bearing  this  inscription,  Contrat  de  Societe, 
On  examination  it  proved  to  be  articles  of  partnership 
drawn  up  some  years  before  his  death,  when  about  to 
leave  his  legal  employments  and  engage  in  the  wine 
and  liquor  trade.  Nothing  less  than  a  literal  copy  of 
this  document  can  give  an  adequate  idea  of  its  character. 

Articles  of  Partnership  between  the  great  Sovereign 
God,  the  all-powerful  and  all- wise  Eternal  on  the  one  part, 
and  me,  the  undersigned,  Isaac  Vaugneux,  his  very  vile, 
very  miserable,  and  very  humble  servant  and  zealous  adorer 
on  the  other,  have  been  drawn  up  as  follows :  — 

Article  1.  This  connection  has  for  its  object  the  trade  in 
liquors. 

Art.  2.  My  very  respectable  and  very  magnanimous  asso- 
ciate will  deign  to  bestow,  as  his  share  in  the  capital,  his 
blessing  on  our  enterprise,  in  the  manner  he  shall  judge  most 
agreeable  to  his  paternal  views  and  the  accomplishment  of 
the  immutable  secrets  of  his  eternal  wisdom. 

Art.  3.   I,  the  undersigned,  Isaac  Vaugneux,   engage,  on 


DELUSIONS   AND    HALLUCINATIONS.  157 

ray  part,  to  turn  into  the  above-named  partnership  all  the 
capital  that  may  be  necessary ;  to  do  all  the  business  required 
in  the  hiring  of  cellars ;  in  the  purchases  and  sales  ;  in  keep- 
ing the  accounts ;  and,  in  one  word,  to  devote  my  time,  my 
labor,  and  my  moral  and  physical  powers,  to  the  best  good 
of  the  concern,  conscientiously  and  in  good  faith. 

Art.  4.  The  books,  kept  by  single  entry,  shall  exhibit  every 
transaction;  and  the  several  balances,  carried  to  the  debit 
and  credit  side,  shall  be  increased  by  interest  calculated  pro 
rata.,  up  to  the  31st  of  December  of  each  year,  when  a  settle- 
ment of  the  account  shall  be  made. 

Art.  5.  The  net  profits  shall  be  equally  divided  between 
my  high  and  mighty  Associate  and  myself. 

Art.  6.  A  special  account  shall  be  opened  with  him,  in 
which  shall  be  passed  to  his  credit  his  share  of  the  profits, 
and  to  his  debit  the  several  sums  which  shall  have  been  de- 
livered by  me,  the  undersigned,  either  to  pious  corporations, 
to  the  poor  individually  and  collectively,  or  finally  to  any 
other  pious  work  which  the  Spirit  of  my  God  shall  inspire 
me  to  do. 

Art.  7.  When  my  God  shall  deem  it  good  to  take  me  from 
this  world,  the  settlement  of  the  affairs  of  the  partnership 
shall  be  immediately  intrusted  to  my  nephew,  M.  Frederic 
Preud'homme  Favarger,  who  is  hereby  requested  by  me  to 
undertake  this  oharge,  after  which  the  share  of  the  profits 
coming  to  my  great  and  well-beloved  associate,  is  to  be  im- 
mediately delivered  to  the  direction  of  the  praiseworthy 
chamber  of  charity  of  Neufchatel,  to  which  I  now  bequeath  it. 

With  the  liveliest  satisfaction  in  having  associated  my 
God  in  my  labors,  I  commit  myself  for  success  to  the  wise 
dispensations  of  Providence. 

Thus  done,  covenanted,  and  settled,  at  Neufchatel,  in  my 
house,  under  my  private  signature  and  the  seal  of  my  arms, 
the  seventeenth  day  of  September,  in  the  year  of  grace  one 
thousand  eight  hundred  and  forty-seven  (1847). 

l.s.  Signed,  I.  Vattgkeux,  Notary. 


158  DELUSIONS   AND   HALLUCINATIONS. 

The  great  events  which  have  occurred  in  my  country, 
and  the  changes  that  have  taken  place  since  this  partnership 
was  formed,  especially  in  respect  to  the  persons  engaged  in 
the  administration  of  affairs,  have  induced  me  to  change  the 
destination  of  that  portion  of  the  profits  coming  to  my  great 
and  magnanimous  associate ;  and  in  consequence  thereof, 
and  in  conformity  to  the  inspiration  of  his  good  Spirit,  I 
make  the  following  change  in  Article  7th :  — 

The  net  proceeds  coming  to  my  respectable  associate,  after 
settlement,  if  any  such  there  be  after  my  death,  is  to  be  re- 
mitted, not  to  the  chamber  of  charity  of  Neufchatel,  but,  on 
the  contrary,  to  the  pastors  then  in  office  in  the  parish  of 
Neufchatel,  to  be  by  them  devoted  to  pious  uses  at  their  dis- 
cretion, some  portion  to  be  given  to  evangelical  missions 
designed  to  spread  the  knowledge  of  the  only  true  God 
throughout  the  earth. 

I  have  the  confidence  to  believe  that  those  gentlemen  will 
willingly  accept  the  charge  I  have  assigned  to  them  without 
consulting  them,  and  that  they  will  enter  into  my  views,  for 
which  I  here  testify,  in  advance,  my  sincere  and  lively  grati- 
tude. 

Thus  done,  written  and  signed  in  my  house  at  Neufchatel, 
the  twenty-fifth  of  March,  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and 
fifty  (1850). 

Signed,  I.  Vaugneux,  Notary. 


March  10,  1855.  Our  enterprise  having  been  blessed,  the 
share  coming  to  my  great  and  magnanimous  associate,  as  it 
may  appear  on  page  79  of  my  book  (current  accounts),  and 
page  60  (account  of  my  associate),  is  to  be  paid  over,  three 
months  after  my  death  or  that  of  my  wife,  to  MM.,  the 
pastors,  as  above  named.  The  executor  of  my  will,  my 
nephew,  Frederic  Preud'homme,  having  deceased,  it  will  be  the 
duty  of  my  successors  to  fulfil  the  conditions  of  the  existing 
partnership,  by  paying  over  this  share  to  MM.,  the  pastors, 


DELUSIONS   AND   HALLUCINATIONS.  159 

if,  as  I  expect,  they  should  be  willing  to  take  charge  of  it,  to 
be  invested  in  the  most  productive  manner,  and  the  capital 
and  income  used  according  to  their  discretion  under  the 
divine  inspiration. 

A  copy  of  this  document  was  placed  in  the  hands  of 
one  of  the  pastors  by  the  writer  before  his  death.  After 
the  widow  died  it  was  opened,  and  the  pastors  made 
application  to  the  Council  of  State,  according  to  the 
municipal  law,  for  authority  to  receive  the  money. 
This  was  refused,  for  the  reason,  as  the  Council  state, 
that  the  paper  in  question  is  "  the  act  of  a  disordered 
mind."  The  niece,  when  she  came  in  possession  of  the 
property,  fulfilled  the  wishes  of  her  uncle  by  making  a 
gift  of  the  money  for  the  purposes  he  had  indicated. 
This  she  did  out  of  the  high  regard  she  had  for  him, 
and  gratitude  for  care  and  kindness  towards  herself. 
She  repels  with  a  good  deal  of  warmth  the  idea  that  he 
was  insane.  "  Although  he  might  have  been  regarded 
as  somewhat  original,"  she  says,  "  yet  it  never  entered 
into  the  thought  of  any  one  that  his  reason  was  de- 
ranged. I,  who  was  always  admitted  to  his  closest  inti- 
macy, know  that  he  possessed  all  his  faculties  to  the 
last  moment,  and  I  revere  his  memory  as  that  of  a  just 
and  upright  man."  It  is  also  stated  that  no  trace  of 
mental  disorder  could  be  found  in  any  of  his  writings ; 
that  his  books  were  well  kept,  the  entries  made,  the 
interest  reckoned,  and  the  balances  got  as  correctly  as 
possible,  all  according  to  the  articles  of  copartnership. 

No  one  can  help  suspecting,  at  first  glance,  that  the 
head  of  this  worthy  wine  merchant  was  somewhat 
turned.  The  astonishing  audacity  with  which  this 
really  religious  man  associates  the  Almighty  with  him- 
self in  a  mere  matter  of  trade  and  traffic,  the  coolness 


160  DELUSIONS   AND   HALLUCINATIONS. 

with  which  he  assigns  to  the  partners  their  respective 
duties  in  the  concern,  and  the  perfect  confidence  on  the 
part  of  one  who  had  been  accustomed  to  legal  forms  and 
proceedings,  that  such  a  paper  would  not  fail  by  reason 
of  any  legal  defect,  would  certainly  justify  such  a  suspi- 
cion. But  a  broader  view  of  psychological  diversities 
of  character  will  lead  us  to  doubt  whether  the  case  is 
not  one  of  those  occupying  that  border  land  between 
sanity  and  insanity  which  bears  the  name  of  eccentric- 
ity, oddity.  Taking  into  view  the  prominent  incidents 
of  the  case,  it  may  be  satisfactorily  explained  without 
resorting  to  the  theory  of  insanity. 

Here  was  a  worthy  old  man,  accustomed  to  see  the 
hand  of  God  in  every  event  of  life,  and  to  look  to  God 
at  every  turn  for  help  and  direction,  about  to  embark  in 
a  new  undertaking.  Feeling  that  men  must  labor  in 
vain  without  the  blessing  of  God,  and  feeling  it,  too,  not 
as  a  glittering  generality,  to  be  coldly  acknowledged 
and  then  forgotten,  but  as  a  vital  principle  of  action  di- 
recting and  controlling  every  movement,  his  first  thought 
was  naturally  to  secure  that  blessing  for  himself.  Both 
reason  and  religion  assured  him  that  nothing  could 
more  effectually  accomplish  this  object  than,  while  work- 
ing for  himself,  to  work  for  the  glory  of  God.  What 
more  acceptable  service  could  he  render  than  to  devote 
a  portion  of  his  earnings  to  charitable  and  religious 
uses  ?  That  this  purpose  may  not  be  lost  sight  of,  that 
it  may  be  ever  kept  before  him  as  the  sole,  animating, 
all-pervading  principle  of  his  life,  he  resolves  to  recognize 
and  consecrate  it  in  a  form  the  most  solemn  and  imper- 
ative. Thus  far,  surely,  there  is  no  trace  of  insanity. 
The  purpose  is  worthy  of  the  strongest  endeavor  and 
the  purest  aims,  and  is  steadily  and  successfully  pur- 
sued for  years.     The  logic,  too,  is  all  correct,  without 


DELUSIONS    AND    HALLUCINATIONS.  161 

fault  or  gap.  The  only  thing  to  which  exception  can 
be  possibly  taken  is  the  form  which  he  has  chosen  for 
the  expression  of  his  intentions  and  motives.  This 
seems  to  savor  of  insanity,  but  it  will  hardly  bear  the 
test.  Be  it  observed  that  it  conflicts  not  at  all  with 
the  object  proposed,  but  rather  aids  and  promotes  it. 
It  exhibits  no  trace  of  delusion  or  even  irrelevance. 
True,  the  idea  of  forming  a  partnership  with  God  seems 
most  extravagant  and  presumptuous,  and  the  language 
used  is  perfectly  shocking  to  a  correct  religious  taste. 
The  presumption,  however,  is  more  apparent  than  real. 
This  old  man,  having  been  accustomed  all  his  life  to  the 
use  of  legal  forms,  with  a  high  opinion,  no  doubt,  of 
their  fitness  for  the  expression  of  all  ideas  whatever, 
not  unnaturally,  though  somewhat  pragmatically,  chooses 
them  on  this  occasion.  It  only  shows  the  force  of  habit 
and  the  narrowing  tendency  of  a  professional  routine. 
Any  other  man,  having  resolved  upon  accomplishing  the 
same  thing  in  a  similar  spirit,  would  have  formally  de- 
clared his  intention  to  devote  one-half  the  profits  of  the 
new  enterprise  to  charitable  and  religious  purposes,  and 
reverently  invoked  the  divine  blessing  on  his  labors, 
And  he  might  have  opened  an  account  on  his  books 
with  "  Charity  Fund,"  or  something  equivalent,  making 
the  same  entries  to  debit  and  credit,  and  directing  his 
executors  to  pay  over  the  balance  that  might  exist  at 
his  decease  to  some  institution  or  trustee.  The  docu- 
ment in  question  exhibits  a  very  common  mark  of  eccen- 
tricity,—  that  of  saying  or  doing  a  very  proper  thing  in 
a  queer,  singular  manner.  In  insanity  the  mental  affec- 
tion as  often  appears  in  the  design  as  in  the  execution. 
In  fact,  the  latter  may  be  all  right,  while  the  former  is 
all  wrong.  We  must  bear  in  mind,  too,  the  effect  of 
religious    associations    and    of  the    prevailing   style  of 

11 


162  DELUSIONS   AND   HALLUCINATIONS. 

religious  thought  and  feeling.  That  must  vary  with 
the  moral  and  intellectual  culture,  the  form  of  faith,  the 
customary  observances,  the  temperament  and  spirit.  All 
this  must  be  considered  before  we  can  properly  estimate 
the  true  pathological  significance  of  this  extraordinary 
contract.  Many  a  prayer  and  sermon  may  still  be  heard, 
once  more  frequently  than  now,  implying  a  close  par- 
ticipation in  the  counsels  of  God,  and  administering 
advice,  suggestion,  and  even  reproof,  more  befitting  a 
member  of  a  mercantile  firm  writing  to  his  partner  than  a 
worm  of  the  dust  addressing  his  Creator.  In  the  works 
of  English  divines,  two  hundred  years  ago,  may  be  found 
passages  relating  to  the  counsels  of  the  Almighty  clothed 
in  terms  of  such  gross  familiarity  that  to  quote  them 
even  would  be  enough  to  expose  one  to  the  charge  of 
irreverence.  We  venture  upon  one  quotation,  how- 
ever, that  the  reader  may  see  how  conventional  are  all 
proprieties  of  speech  on  sacred  subjects,  and  thus  under- 
stand that  much  latitude  in  this  respect  does  not  neces- 
sarily imply  insanity.  It  shows  very  strikingly  that 
such  things  must  be  judged  not  by  any  arbitrary  rule, 
but  by  the  light  of  prevailing  practices,  modes  of 
thought,  and  forms  of  expression.  It  is  from  Flavel,  a 
non-conformist  divine  of  Charles  the  Second's  time, 
whose  writings  have  been  held  in  great  repute,  and 
frequently  reprinted,  even  down  to  our  own  day.  The 
following  extracts  are  from  a  sermon  setting  forth  the 
scheme  of  redemption,  the  text  being  Isaiah  liii.  12:  — 

"  Having  told  God  how  ready  and  fit  he  was  for  this  ser- 
vice, he  will  know  of  him  what  reward  he  shall  have  for  his 
work,  for  he  resolves  his  blood  shall  not  be  undervalued : 
hereupon,  verse  3,  the  Father  offers  him  the  elect  of  Israel 
for  his  reward,  bidding  low  at  first  (as  they  that  made  bar- 
gains use  to  do),  and  only  offers  him  that  small  remnant,  still 


DELUSIONS    AND    HALLUCINATIONS.  163 

intending  to  bid  higher ;  but  Christ  will  not  be  satisfied  with 
these,  he  values  his  blood  higher  than  so  ;  therefore,  in  verse 
4,  he  is  brought  in  complaining,  I  have  labored  in  vain  and 
spent  my  strength  for  naught.  This  is  but  a  small  reward 
for  so  great  a  suffering  as  I  must  undergo  ;  my  blood  is  much 
more  worth  than  this  comes  to,  and  will  be  sufficient  to 
redeem  all  the  elect  dispersed  among  the  isles  of  the  Gen- 
tiles, as  well  as  the  lost  sheep  of  the  house  of  Israel.  Here- 
upon the  Father  comes  up  higher,  and  tells  him  he  intends 
to  reward  him  better  than  so,  and  therefore,  verse  6,  says,  It 
is  a  light  thing  that  thou  shouldest  be  my  servant,  &c.  .  .  . 
Here  you  may  suppose  the  Father  to  say  when  engaging 
this  bargain  with  Christ  for  you:  — 

"Father.  My  Son,  here  is  a  company  of  poor  miserable 
souls  that  have  utterly  undone  themselves,  and  now  lie  open 
to  my  justice.  .  .  .  What  shall  be  done  for  these  souls? 

"  Son.  O  my  Father,  such  is  my  love  to  and  pity  for 
them,  that  rather  than  that  they  shall  perish  eternally,  I  will  be 
responsible  for  them  as  their  surety :  bring  in  all  their  bills 
that  I  may  see  what  they  owe  thee,  Lord,  bring  them  all  in 
that  there  may  be  no  after  reckoning.  .  .  . 

"  Father.  But,  my  Son,  if  thou  undertake  for  them,  thou 
must  reckon  to  pay  the  last  mite,  expect  no  abatements  ;  if  I 
spare  them,  I  wTill  not  spare  thee." 

The  feature  in  the  proceeding  of  Yaugneux  which 
raises  the  strongest  suspicion  of  insanity  is  the  testa- 
tor's unhesitating  belief  that  such  dispositions  of  prop- 
erty would  be  confirmed  by  the  law.  It  might  be 
supposed  that  a  person  professionally  acquainted  with 
the  laws  of  his  country  would  have  avoided  a  mistake 
so  fatal. to  the  fulfilment  of  his  own  wishes,  and  pro- 
vided for  an  object  he  had  so  near  at  heart,  by  measures 
strictly  conformable  to  law.  There  would  seem,  at  first 
thought,  to  be  something  in  this  ;  but,  practically,  such 
mistakes,  I  apprehend,  are  too  common  among  lawyers 


164  DELUSIONS    AND   HALLUCINATIONS. 

to  be  a  strong  indication  of  mental  aberration.  M.  Vaug- 
neux  is  not  the  first  nor  the  last  in  his  profession  who 
has  drawn  a  will  that  could  not  be  executed,  or  shaped 
it  in  such  a  manner  as  to  frustrate  the  strongest  wishes 
of  the  testator. 

In  this  connection,  it  is  proper  to  consider  another 
fact  that  may  have  had  some  bearing  on  this  case.  The 
idea  of  forming  a  partnership  with  God  did  not  originate 
with  M.  Vaugneux.  In  the  fourth  volume  of  an  old  col- 
lection of  Causes  Celebres,  published  in  Paris  in  1736 
by  Jean  de  Nully,  may  be  found  a  similar  case  that  was 
adjudicated  in  Paris  a  few  years  before.  A  young 
Frenchman,  named  Duhalde,  after  various  unsuccess- 
ful business  enterprises,  "  resolved,"  as  he  expressed  it 
himself,  in  his  diary,  "  to  form  a  partnership  with  God, 
promising  and  vowing  to  fulfil  all  the  conditions,  as  here 
set  forth,  and  engaging  my  heirs,  whoever  they  may  be, 
to  execute  them,  in  case  I  shall  die  before  being  able 
to  do  it  myself."  The  business  of  the  firm  was  to  be 
trading  in  precious  stones,  and  was  to  continue  five 
years,  from  1719  to  1724.  By  the  conditions  of  the 
partnership,  he  was  to  furnish  the  funds,  fifteen  thou- 
sand livres, —  all  he  possessed,  —  and  God  was  to  bless 
the  enterprise.  He  obligated  himself  to  form  no  other 
partnership  during  the  five  years.  At  the  end  of  this 
period,  the  accounts  of  the  firm  were  to  be  settled ;  and, 
after  deducting  the  original  capital,  fifteen  thousand 
livres,  any  dowry  a  wife  might  bring  him,  and  any  lega- 
cies he  might  receive,  the  remainder  was  to  be  equally 
divided  between  him  and  God.  In  October,  1724,  when 
the  partnership  expired  by  limitation,  Duhalde  made  up 
the  books  and  presented  an  exact  account  of  receipts  and 
disbursements.  After  making  the  deductions  just  indi- 
cated, the  profits  were  represented  by  three  collections 


DELUSIONS   AND   HALLUCINATIONS.  165 

of  precious  stones,  one  of  which  was  in  Amsterdam,  one 
in  Madrid,  and  the  other  in  Paris.  The  last-named  he 
placed  in  a  packet,  and  marked  it,  "  Half  for  the  Poor,-' 
and  at  the  foot  of  the  account  he  wrote  the  following 
words :  — 

"  Cursed  be  my  heirs,  whoever  they  may  be,  if,  under  any 
possible  pretext,  they  withhold  from  the  Poor  half  of  the 
proceeds  of  the  sale  of  the  stones  above-named,  in  case  I  die 
without  executing  my  own  wishes.  And  if,  by  some  extra- 
ordinary chance,  my  fortune  shall  be  reduced  to  this  single 
amount,  let  it  be  considered  as  a  sacred  trust  which  is  to  be 
sacredly  paid." 

Duhalde  died  shortly  after,  leaving  a  wife  and  child, 
and  the  "  HOpital  General  "  claimed  of  the  executors  of 
his  will  the  portion  of  stones  indicated  to  be  given  to 
the  poor.  The  widow,  by  her  counsel,  resisted  this 
claim,  chiefly  on  the  score  of  some  legal  objections 
drawn  from  the  provisions  of  the  Coutume  de  Paris 
respecting  wills,  whereby  the  contract  and  its  results 
were  shown  to  possess  no  legal  validity.  Another  objec- 
tion, extra  legal  in  its  nature,  was  that  in  this  arrange- 
ment there  could  be  created  no  obligation  on  the  part 
of  God.  A  partnership  supposes  equal  and  reciprocal 
obligations.  Even  Duhalde  himself  was  not  obligated, 
for  he  had  not  signed  the  articles  of  partnership.  This 
very  objection  was  urged  in  the  Yaugneux  case.  The 
fact  was  also  stated  that  Duhalde  was  a  very  singular 
man,  with  odd,  strange  ways ;  but  it  does  not  seem  to 
have  been  contended  that  these  mental  peculiarities 
amounted  to  testamentary  incapacity.  By  the  counsel 
for  the  will,  one  of  whom  was  the  son  of  the  celebrated 
Chancellor  D'Aguesseau,  it  was  contended  that  there 
was  nothing  in  reason  or  Scripture  to  forbid  the  idea  of 


166  DELUSIONS   AND   HALLUCINATIONS. 

a  contract  with  God.  He  contributed  nothing  directly 
to  the  funds  of  the  firm ;  but  was  not  the  testator  in- 
debted to  him  for  the  capital  on  which  he  started? 
tl  Considered  as  a  contract  with  God,  the  present  case  is 
not  without  precedents  in  the  dealings  of  God  with 
man.  Did  not  the  Lord  make  a  covenant  with  Abram, 
whereby  the  latter,  in  reward  for  his  fidelity,  obtained 
the  land  of  Egypt  for  his  posterity?  Did  he  not  also 
make  a  covenant  with  Noah,  promising  never  again  to 
cut  off  all  flesh  by  the  waters  of  a  flood,  and  to  place 
the  bow  in  the  cloud  as  the  eternal  seal  of  the  promise  ? 
The  sacrament  of  baptism,  too,  —  is  not  that  in  the  nature 
of  a  contract  with  God?  Will  it  be  said  that  this  being 
a  contract  for  spiritual  purposes  has  no  analogy  to  a 
business  partnership  like  Duhalde's  ?  But  what  was 
the  animating  spirit  of  the  latter?  Was  it  not  the  love 
of  God  and  our  neighbor?  Was  not  the  object  of  this 
connection  a  purely  spiritual  good  ?  In  thus  renounc- 
ing his  earthly  goods,  and  associating  himself  with  the 
Almighty,  did  not  Duhalde  form  a  more  perfect  union 
with  God  ?"  The  court,  governed  solely,  it  may  be  pre- 
sumed, by  the  legal  considerations,  decided  in  favor  of 
the  will. 

It  can  scarcely  be  doubted  that  Vaugneux's  profes- 
sional studies  had  made  him  acquainted  with  this  old 
case,  because  the  collection  in  which  it  is  contained  is 
well  known  to  every  French  lawyer.  It  might  have 
suggested  to  him  the  bold  idea  of  associating  himself 
with  God,  and  the  decision  of  the  court  would  have 
removed  any  doubts  respecting  its  legality. 

In  consideration  of  all  the  circumstances  necessary 
to  be  considered,  we  can  scarcely  hesitate  to  believe 
that  this  testator  can  be  charged  with  no  mental  defect 
equivalent  to  insanity,  and  was  competent,  of  course,  to 


DELUSIONS    AND   HALLUCINATIONS.  167 

devise  his  property'as  he  did.  Had  he,  on  the  contrary, 
as  Dr.  Chatelain,  who  reports  the  case,  observes,  com- 
pletely disinherited  his  heirs,  who  had  a  moral  right  to 
rely  on  his  bounty,  then  the  case  might  have  borne  a 
different  construction. 


CONFINEMENT    OF    THE    INSANE. 


Until  within  a  comparatively  recent  period,  hospitals 
for  the  insane  were  used  only  for  those  who  were  sup- 
posed to  be  dangerous  to  others,  or  who  needed  public 
support ;  and  admission  was  procured,  on  the  order  of 
the  judicial  or  municipal  authorities.  As  the  nature  of 
mental  diseases  became  better  understood,  the  hospitals 
began  to  be  regarded  as  being  well  fitted  for  the  cure 
of  curable  cases,  and,  at  last,  this  has  got  to  be  their 
principal  purpose,  insomuch  that  those  who  were  held 
merely  for  safe  keeping  have  had  to  give  place  to  those 
who  sought  for  recovery  under  their  healing  influences. 
This  change  of  function  occurred  so  gradually,  and  in 
such  strict  accordance  with  an  enlightened  humanity, 
that  no  additional  legislation  seemed  to  be  necessary  to 
sanction  a  step  which,  though  prompted  by  the  best  of 
motives,  was  unaccompanied  by  any  of  those  legal  for- 
malities that  were  required  for  the  admission  of  other 
classes  of  patients.  The  danger  of  these  institutions 
being  converted  to  the  nefarious  purpose  of  depriving 
sane  persons  of  their  liberty  was  scarcely  thought  of. 
A  crime  so  revolting  to  every  sentiment  of  right  and 
humanity,  and  requiring  the  cooperation  of  parties  so 
unlikely  to  work  together,  seemed  to  be  too  improbable 
to  make  any  special  legislation  supererogatory.  So, 
too,  the   duty  of  placing  the   insane   in  establishments 


CONFINEMENT   OF   THE   INSANE.  169 

that  were  regarded  as  best  calculated  to  effect  their 
restoration,  seemed  to  spring  so  naturally  from  the 
purest  affections  of  our  nature  as  to  require  no  act  of 
the  legislature  to  give  it  force  and  validity.  Fifty 
years  ago,  it  struck  the  people  of  that  generation,  that 
to  legalize  such  a  duty  was  like  reenacting  a  law  of 
nature. 

Of  late  years,  with  little  or  no  foundation  therefor, 
a  change  of  sentiment  has  occurred,  whereby  admission 
to  hospitals  for  the  insane  has  come  to  be  regarded,  by 
some  persons,  as  exceedingly  liable  to  be  perverted  by 
bad  men  from  its  proper  purpose.  To  prevent  this 
result,  additional  legislation  has  been  proposed,  which 
should  surround  this  measure  with  safeguards  commen- 
surate with  the  abuses  that  threaten  it.  Such  legisla- 
tion, varying  considerably  in  its  character,  has  been 
actually  adopted  in  a  few  States.  In  some,  it  has 
refrained  from  disturbing  the  right  and  duties  of  friends 
as  prompted  by  natural  affection  and  consecrated  by 
time-honored  practice.  In  others,  it  has  substituted  for 
these  the  action  of  public  authorities  ;  and  a  service  of 
love  and  humanity  has  been  replaced  b}7  an  unfeeling 
process  of  law.  With  these  exceptions,  however,  there 
has  been  no  change  of  law  respecting  the  confinement, 
or,  technically  speaking,  the  isolation,  of  the  insane. 
How  far  the  right  of  friends  exists,  under  the  common 
law,  to  provide  for  the  insane  as  they  would  for  any 
other  description  of  sick  persons,  —  that  is,  by  giving 
them  the  benefit  of  all  the  means  and  appliances  which 
a  progressive  philanthropy  and  science  have  furnished, 
—  is  not  very  clearly  defined  ;  for,  in  the  few  cases  that 
have  been  reported,  the  decisions  of  courts  have  been 
somewhat  conflicting.  Nor  has  all  uncertainty  been 
removed^  even  where  laws  have  been  specially  enacted 


170  CONFINEMENT    OF   THE   INSANE. 

for  this  purpose.  And  thus  it  happens  that,  in  regard 
to  a  measure  involving  the  highest  welfare  of  a  large 
class  of  persons,  we  have  the  utmost  diversity  of 
opinion;  and  the  public  mind  is  vexed  by  wild  and  ex- 
travagant projects  utterly  inconsistent  with  existing 
modes  of  thought  and  established  customs.  In  a  matter 
so  closely  connected  with  the  dearest  interests  of  fam- 
ilies, one,  too,  which  so  easily  arouses  the  prejudices  of 
the  multitude,  the  law  should  give  no  uncertain  sound. 
No  one  should  be  in  doubt  how  far  his  duties  to  the 
victim  of  disease  are  modified  by  the  single  fact  that 
the  disorder  is  seated  in  the  brain,  rather  than  in  the 
stomach  or  lungs  ;  nor  should  any  one  run  the  risk  of 
finding  an  office  of  kindness  and  humanity  made  the 
occasion  of  a  troublesome  suit  at  law.  As  to  the  ne- 
cessity of  some  legislation  on  this  subject,  there 
can  scarcely  be  two  opinions  ;  but  we  shall  be  better 
prepared  to  determine  exactly  what  it  should  be  by 
considering  the  existing  law  as  declared  by  judicial 
authorities. 

The  case  of  Colby  v.  Jackson,  12  N.H.  526  (1842), 
was  an  action  of  trespass  for  assault  and  battery,  and 
false  imprisonment,  in  which  the  plaintiff  claimed 
damages  of  the  defendant,  for  having  placed  him,  while 
insane,  in  confinement,  without  having  strictly  com- 
plied with  the  requirements  of  the  statute.  The  select- 
men of  the  town,  one  of  whom  was  the  defendant,  being 
solicited  to  take  charge  of  Colby,  who  was  supposed  to 
be  dangerously  insane,  applied  to  the  Judge  of  Probate 
for  authority  to  act,  and  were  accordingly  directed  by 
him  to  make  inquisition  into  the  case.  This  they  did, 
but  made  no  return  of  the  inquisition,  though  they 
found  him  to  be  dangerously  insane,  and  had  him  con- 
fined in  a  cage  at  the  poor-house  for  two  or  three  months. 


CONFINEMENT   OF   THE   INSANE.  171 

It  was  urged  by  the  defendant  that  the  dangerous 
element  in  the  patient's  case  atoned  for  the  irregu- 
larities in  the  mode  of  commitment ;  bat  a  verdict  was 
given  for  the  plaintiff,  with  nominal  damages.  The 
defendant  excepted  to  the  rulings  of  the  court  at  the 
trial.  Chief  Justice  Gilchrist,  in  rendering  the  decision 
of  the  court,  declared,  in  the  most  unqualified  manner, 
that  an  insane  person,  however  dangerous  he  might  be, 
could  not  be  kept  in  confinement  beyond  the  period 
necessary  for  obtaining  an  inquisition,  or  some  other 
legal  process.  "  The  right  to  imprison  the  plaintiff,"  he 
said,  "  was  an  authority  given  by  law.  .  .  .  Such 
an  authority  is  possessed  by  no  person  unless  under  the 
sanction  of,  and  after  compliance  with,  the  forms  of  law. 
No  relationship,  however  near,  no  ties  of  friendship, 
however  close,  between  the  lunatic  and  his  keeper, 
would  render  the  existence  of  such  a  rule  consistent 
with  the  safety  of  the  community.  .  .  .  Every  cage 
could  be  a  licensed  private  mad-house.  .  .  .  Any  citi- 
zen could  confine  his  neighbor,  provided  only  he  were 
insane  ;  and,  if  the  confinement  were  to  continue  as  long 
as  the  insanity,  both  would  probably  end  only  with  the 
life  of  the  patient." 

In  Nottidge  v.  Eipley,  12  Law  Reporter,  279,  which 
was  an  action  to  recover  compensation  in  damages  for 
incarcerating  the  plaintiff  in  an  asylum,  tried  in  the 
Court  of  Exchequer,  June  23,  1848,  it  appeared  that 
the  plaintiff  was  placed  in  a  private  asylum  by  her 
mother  and  brother-in-law  ;  all  the  requirements  of  the 
statute  for  the  admission  of  patients  into  asylums  hav- 
ing first  been  strictly  complied  with.  The  insanity  was 
not  denied;  but,  inasmuch  as  she  did  not  appear  to  have 
been  dangerous,  the  counsel  for  the  plaintiff  contended 
that   the    confinement  was  illegal,  and    claimed    heavy 


172  CONFINEMENT   OF   THE   INSANE. 

damages.  Their  view  of  the  illegality  of  the  measure 
was  fully  sustained  by  Sir  Frederick  Pollock,  the  Lord 
Chief  Baron,  and  for  the  reason  alleged.  His  views  are 
summarily  expressed  in  one  of  the  head-notes  of  the 
case.  "  Unless  a  person  alleged  to  be  insane  is  of  un- 
sound mind,  and  dangerous  to  herself  and  others,  no 
person  can  remove  her  from  her  home  to  an  insane 
asylum,  without  the  sanction  of  a  commission  of 
lunacy."  To  one  of  the  Commissioners  in  Lunacy,  who 
was  a  witness  in  the  case,  and  whose  especial  business 
it  was  to  look  after  the  asylums,  he  said :  "  It  is  my 
opinion  yon  ought  to  liberate  every  person  who  is  not 
dangerous  to  himself  or  to  others." 

In  the  first  of  these  cases,  the  rule  is  laid  down  in 
the  most  unequivocal  manner,  that,  under  the  common 
law,  no  person  can  be  confined  on  account  of  insanity, 
without  some  process  of  law.  In  the  other,  an  excep- 
tion is  made  in  favor  of  such  cases  as  are  supposed  to 
be  dangerous.  As  the  statute  (8  &  9  Vict.  c.  100) 
prescribes  certain  conditions  without  which  no  person 
can  be  received  into  any  asylum  or  hospital  for  the 
insane,  this  may  be  fairly  considered  as  equivalent  to  a 
grant  of  authority.  It  can  hardly  be  supposed  that 
this  provision  was  overlooked  at  the  trial,  though  it  is 
a  curious  circumstance  that  it  was  not  once  mentioned 
by  either  party.  However  this  may  be,  it  appears  none 
the  less  clearly  what  was  the  opinion  of  the  court  re- 
specting the  common  law  on  this  matter. 

In  the  matter  of  Shuttleworth,  9  Q.  B.  651  (1846), 
a  somewhat  different  view  was  taken.  This  was  an 
attempt,  by  means  of  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  to  obtain 
the  discharge  of  a  lady  from  an  asylum  in  which  she 
had  been  detained  several  months,  for  the  reason  that 
one  of  the  queries  which  always  accompany  the  order 


CONFINEMENT    OF   THE    INSANE.  173 

of  admission  was  not  answered  precisely  in  the  words 
prescribed  by  the  act.  The  return  to  the  writ  was,  that 
she  was  "  of  unsound  mind,  memory,  and  understanding, 
and  incapable  of  governing  herself  or  her  property,  or 
managing  her  affairs,  and  unfit  and  unsafe  to  be  at 
large."  Governed  by  this  return,  Mr.  Justice  Cole- 
ridge observed  that  "  he  was  not  prepared  to  concede 
that  if  the  certificate  were  deficient,  they  were  to  dis- 
charge." To  the  counsel  who  claimed  the  discharge 
on  the  ground  that  the  confinement  was  illegal,  the 
Chief  Justice,  Lord  Denman,  said  :  "  Is  not  the  confining 
of  a  dangerous  lunatic  founded  on  common  law  princi- 
ples?" And,  as  if  to  recognize  in  the  most  distinct 
manner  the  right  of  friends  to  care  for  the  patient,  even 
though  it  involved  confinement,  he  further  said :  "  If 
the  court  thought  a  party  unlawfully  received  or  de- 
tained was  a  lunatic,  we  should  still  be  betraying  the 
common  duties  of  members  of  society,  if  we  directed  a 
discharge.  .  .  .  Should  we,  as  judges  or  individuals,  be 
justified  in  setting  such  a  party  at  large  ?  .  .  .  I  should 
be  abusing  the  name  of  liberty,  if  I  were  to  take  off  a 
restraint  for  which  those  who  are  most  interested  in  the 
party  should  be  most  thankful." 

In  Commonwealth,  ex  relatione  Nyce  v.  Kirkbride, 
county  of  Philadelphia,  March  7,  1868,  2  Brewster,  400, 
the  relator  claimed  his  discharge  from  the  Pennsylvania 
hospital  for  the  insane,  where  he  had  been  kept  several 
months,  on  the  ground  that  if  insane  he  was  not  danger- 
ously so.  The  return  to  the  writ  was  that  he  was 
insane,  and  that  his  discharge  would  be  dangerous  to 
his  family.  Upon  this  point  much  evidence  was  given 
on  both  sides.  The  two  physicians  of  the  hospital,  and 
seven  other  witnesses,  most  of  them  relatives,  concurred 
in  establishing  the  correctness  of  the  return,  while  a 


174  CONFINEMENT   OF   THE   INSANE. 

few  others  testified,  quite  positively,  that  he  was  sane. 
The  court,  not  being  satisfied  that  he  was  dangerous, 
directed  him  to  be  discharged.  In  rendering  the  judg- 
ment of  the  court,  Judge  Brewster  declared  "  that  the 
power  to  remand,  where  there  has  been  no  finding  of 
lunacy,  should  be  confined  to  the  preservation  of  the 
patient,  and  the  public  peace  and  morals." 

Shortly  after  the  hearing  of  the  case  just  mentioned, 
Moore,  an  inmate  of  the  same  institution,  was  brought 
before  the  same  court,  on  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus.  His 
discharge  was  claimed  on  the  ground  that  he  was  not 
then,  and  never  had  been,  insane.  In  declaring  the 
opinion  of  the  court,  Judge  Allison,  while  distinctly 
recognizing  the  fact  of  Moore's  insanity  when  admitted 
into  the  hospital  some  eleven  or  twelve  weeks  pre- 
viously, regarded  him  as  so  much  improved,  "  though 
manifesting,  in  court,  considerable  excitement  of  man- 
ner," as  to  conclude  that  "  it  would  not  be  unsafe  to 
discharge  him  from  custody,  or  that  he  would  not  do 
violence  to  himself  or  others."  On  this  ground,  mainly, 
"aided  by  the  belief  that  his  entire  recovery  would  be 
aided  by  freedom  rather  than  by  farther  restraint  of 
liberty,"  the  court  directed  his  discharge. 

In  January,  1845,  Josiah  Oakes  was  brought  before 
the  Supreme  Judicial  Court  of  Massachusetts,  on  a  writ 
of  habeas  corpus ;  the  object  of  which  was  to  procure 
his  discharge  from  the  McLean  Asylum  for  the  Insane, 
to  which  he  had  been  committed  by  his  family,  on  the 
16th  of  the  previous  month.  Chief  Justice  Shaw,  in 
delivering  the  opinion  of  the  whole  court,  replied  to  the 
allegation  of  counsel  that  the  constitution  makes  it  im- 
perative upon  the  court  to  discharge  any  person  detained 
against  his  will ;  and  that,  by  the  common  law,  no  per- 
son can  be  restrained  of  his  liberty,  except  by  the  judg- 


CONFINEMENT   OF   THE    INSANE.  175 

merit  of  his  peers,  or  the  law  of  the  land.     "  We  think," 
said   he,  "  there  is  no  provision,  either  of  the  common 
law  or  the  constitution  which  makes  it  the  duty  of  the 
court  to   discharge   every  person,  whether  sane  or  in- 
sane, who  is  kept  in  confinement  against  his  will.  x  The 
provision,  if  it  be  true,  must  be  general  and  absolute, 
and  not  governed  by  any  questions  of  expediency  to 
suit  the  emergencies  of  any  particular  case.     The  right 
to  restrain   an  insane   person  of  his  liberty/is  found  in 
that  great  law  of  humanity  which  makes  it  necessary 
to  confine  those  whose  going  at  large  would  be  danger- 
ous to  themselves  or  others.  .  .  .  The  necessity  which 
creates  the  law  creates  the  limitation  of  the  law.  .   .  . 
If  there  is  no  right  to  exercise  that  restraint  for  a  fort- 
night, there  is  no  right  to  exercise  it  for  an  hour.     And 
if  a  man  may  be  restrained  in  his   own  house,  he  may 
be    restrained    in    a    suitable   asylum,   under   the  same 
limitations  and  rules.   .  .   .  The  provisions  of  the   con- 
stitution,   in    relation    to   this    subject,    must   be    taken 
with   such  limitations,   and   must   bear    such    construc- 
tion,  as   arise   out    of  the    circumstances    of  the    case. 
Besides,  it  is  a  principle   of  law  that  an  insane  person    | 
has  no  will  of  his  own.     In  that  case,  it  becomes  the 
duty  of  others  to   provide  for  his  safety  and  their  own. 
.  .   .  The  question  must  then  arise,  in  each  particular 
case,  whether  a  person's  own  safety,  or  that  of  others, 
requires  that  he  should  be  restrained  for  a  certain  time, 
and  whether  restraint  is  necessary  for  his  restoration, 
or  will  be   conducive  thereto.     The  restraint  can  con- 
tinue as  long  as  the  necessity  continues.     This  is   the 
limitation,  and  the  proper  limitation."     The  court  being 
satisfied  that  Oakes  was  insane  when  admitted  into  the 
asylum,  and  that  he  had  not  yet  fully  recovered,  refused 
to   discharge    him,  adding,  that  "  the   restraint  should 


176  CONFINEMENT    OF   THE   INSANE. 

last  as  long  as  is  necessary  for  the  safety  of  himself  and 
of  others,  and  until  he  experiences  relief  from  the  pres- 
ent disease  of  his  mind."     8  Law  Reporter,  122. 

Here  the  point  is  well  made,  that,  if  the  common  law 
does  not  authorize  the  confinement  of  the  insane,  its 
operation  must  be  absolute  and  unconditional.  No  ex- 
ception is  made  in  favor  of  those  who  are  dangerous,  or 
are  offensive  contra  bonos  mores.  Its  silence  creates  no 
warrant  for  depriving  a  person  of  his  liberty,  even  for 
a  single  hour.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  apprehension 
of  danger  does  warrant  us  in  law  to  restrain  a  person's 
liberty,  then,  for  a  reason  equally  strong,  the  promotion 
of  the  person's  comfort  and  restoration  should  have  the 
same  effect.  The  court  takes  care,  by  repeated  itera- 
tions, to  have  it  understood  that  to  promote  the  re- 
covery of  the  patient  is  a  sufficient  warrant  for  his 
confinement  in  an  asylum.  It  is  required  also  by  the 
law  of  humanity,  which,  like  the  common  law,  is  founded 
in  reason,  and  thus  may  be  justly  regarded  as  part  and 
parcel  of  the  common  law. 

The  views  of  Chief  Justice  Shaw  were  fully  indorsed 
a  few  years  later,  in  Pennsylvania,  in  the  well  known 
case  of  Hinchman  v.  Richie,  Brightly,  143  (1849).  The 
plaintiff  having  been  placed  in  an  asylum  by  his  friends, 
without  any  legal  process,  his  counsel  contended  that 
the  act  was  contrary  to  the  Bill  of  Rights,  and  a  viola- 
tion of  the  constitution  of  Pennsylvania.  The  court, 
Judge  Burnside,  said :  "  1  do  not  agree  to  that  proposi- 
tion: it  would  have  been  true,  had  he  been  charged 
with  a  crime  ;  but  the  right  to  restrain  an  insane  person 
of  his  liberty  is  found,  as  expressed  by  Chief  Justice 
Shaw  of  Massachusetts,  '  in  the  great  law  of  humanity.' 
The  Pennsylvania  hospital  was  in  existence  half  a  cen- 
tury before  the  adoption  of  the   constitution  of  1790, 


CONFINEMENT   OF    THE    INSANE.  177 

and  it  was  in  existence  and  operation,  as  well  as  this 
asylum,  when  the  amended  constitution  of  1838  was 
adopted.  So  that  those  gentlemen  (and  they  were  men 
of  talent  and  distinguished  ability,  in  both  conventions, 
and  especially  the  convention  of  1790)  who  formed  this 
constitution,  had  the  practice  of  the  Pennsylvania  hos- 
pital before  them  ;  and  the  late  convention  had  before 
them,  in  addition  to  that,  the  practice  of  this  asylum. 
I  then  negative  the  proposition  that  it  is  a  violation  of 
the  constitution  of  Pennsylvania  so  to  arrest  and  confine 
an  insane  man." 

Alluding  to  this  case,  Wharton  and  Stille,  in  their 
Treatise  on  Medical  Jurisprudence,  say  :  "  There  are, 
necessarily,  cases  when  the  safety  of  property,  and  the 
health  of  the  patient  himself,  require  confinement  in  an 
asylum,  though  there  be  no  danger  of  violence  to  him- 
self or  others ;  and  it  is  not  likely  that  the  existence  of 
such  cases  will  be  again  judicially  questioned.  .  .  .  The 
law,  in  such  a  case,  undoubtedly  is,  that  confinement  is 
justifiable,  if  either  the  safety  of  the  patient  or  others 
require  it,  or  it  is  necessary  for  his  restoration  to 
health." 

The  doctrine  clearly  implied  in  most  of  these  cases  is, 
that,  without  some  legal  process,  insane  persons  cannot 
be  held  in  confinement  under  the  common  law,  though 
exception  is  made  of  such  as  are  proved  to  be  danger- 
ous to  themselves  or  others.  Danger,  then,  is  the  ele- 
ment which  is  to  legalize  that  which,  without  it,  would 
be  manifestly  illegal.  It  is  proper  that  a  doctrine  of 
such  extreme  importance,  determining,  as  it  must,  the 
question  of  confinement  or  liberty,  should  be  thoroughly 
understood,  in  order  to  avoid  mistakes  involving  the 
most  serious  consequences.  Let  us,  therefore,  consider 
it  by  the  light  of  professional  observation, — the  only 

12 


178  CONFINEMENT   OF   THE   INSANE. 

light  that  can  be  trusted  on  a  strictly  professional 
subject,  remote  from  men's  ordinary  thoughts  and  ex- 
perience. 

A  proclivity  to  mischief  is  one  of  the  most  common 
traits  of  the  insane.  Yielding  to  passions  unchecked 
by  moral  or  prudential  restraints,  controlled  by  delu- 
sions that  are  mistaken  for  the  most  vivid  of  realities, 
moved  by  impulses  that  are  completely  irresistible, 
delighted  by  what  would  otherwise  have  caused  unut- 
terable pain  and  disgust,  they  are,  necessarily,  by  the 
very  conditions  of  the  case,  dangerous.  Not  that  the 
danger  is  always  imminent,  or  always  extreme.  If  pas- 
sionate and  quarrelsome,  the  patient  may,  for  a  while, 
be  kept  in  good  humor  by  adroit  management ;  if  sui- 
cidal, he  may  merely  revolve  the  idea  of  self-destruction 
until  a  peculiarly  favorable  moment  invites  him  to  make 
the  attempt ;  if  strong  delusions  lead  him  to  regard  his 
dearest  friends  with  distrust  and  aversion,  he  may  long 
refrain  from  actual  violence  by  lack  of  a  vigorous  will 
that  may  come,  sooner  or  later.  Under  the  skilful  man- 
agement of  a  hospital,  removed  from  countless  causes 
of  excitement,  and  guided  by  those  who  are  well  ac- 
quainted with  the  ways  of  the  insane,  he  may  cause  no 
alarm ;  and,  indeed,  may  seem,  to  a  casual  observer, 
quite  free  from  dangerous  dispositions.  This  element 
of  insanity  is  so  dependent  on  circumstances,  so  shielded 
from  observation,  so  masked  by  amiable  traits  of  char- 
acter, so  modified  by  physiological  conditions,  —  by  a 
little  more  or  a  little  less  blood  in  the  head,  by  the  ap- 
proach of  a  menstrual  period,  or  some  unusual  nervous 
movement,  —  that  it  may  be  easily  overlooked  by  an 
unpractised  eye.  A  long,  close  observation  of  a  certain 
patient  may  enable  one  to  say  that  he  is  harmless ;  but 
it  would  be  the   height  of  foolhardiness  to  say  this  of 


CONFINEMENT    OF    THE   INSANE.  170 

any  patient  on  the  strength  of  one  or  two  interviews. 
The  records  of  insanity  show  that  some  of  the  most 
fearful  acts  of  violence  have  been  committed  by  those 
who  were  supposed  to  be  harmless,  and  who,  for  years, 
had  possessed  unrestricted  liberty.  We  do  not  deny 
that  some  insane  persons  may  go  all  their  days  without 
harm  to  person  or  property  ;  but  we  do  deny  that  we 
ever  can  predict  with  any  tolerable  degree  of  certainty 
that  such  will  be  the  case. 

The  prominence  given  by  courts  to  this  matter  of 
danger  seems  to  imply  that  the  only  function  of  hospi- 
tals and  asylums  sanctioned  by  law  is  to  take  the  cus- 
tody of  such  insane  as  are  unsafe  when  at  large,  and 
without  friends  to  care  for  them.  Hundreds  of  years 
ago,  such  was  undoubtedly  the  fact ;  but  in  our  days, 
thanks  to  modern  philanthropy,  these  establishments  are 
arranged  and  managed  with  the  special  purpose  in  view 
of  curing  the  disease,  and  restoring  the  sufferer  to 
society.  For  this  eminently  proper  and  commendable 
purpose  they  are  resorted  to  by  thousands,  as  medicinal 
springs  and  water-cures  are  for  the  relief  of  bodily  dis- 
eases, with  as  little  thought  of  law  in  the  one  case  as  in 
the  other.  It  is  not  easy  to  see  why  the  legislature 
should  prohibit  the  friends  from  doing  that  for  the  res- 
toration of  the  patient,  which  may  be  done  for  the  pro- 
tection of  society  against  contingent  danger.  The 
remarkable  change  that  has  been  effected  in  hospitals 
for  the  insane,  whereby,  instead  of  being  dreary  prisons 
for  the  safe  keeping  of  dangerous  people,  they  have 
become  pleasant  abodes,  furnished  with  every  appliance 
for  promoting  the  mental  and  physical  comfort  of  their 
inmates,  and  fitted  by  all  their  arrangements  to  reclaim 
the  wandering  mind,  should  not  be  ignored  by  the  legis- 
lative  power.      It  is    to   be    regretted  that   from    any 


180  CONFINEMENT   OE   THE   INSANE. 

quarter  countenance  should  be  afforded  to  the  vulgar 
notions  which  represent  these  useful  and  benevolent 
institutions  as  prisons,  Bastiles,  into  which  those  who 
enter  leave  all  hope  behind. 

But  it  is  not  merely  for  the  curable  and  the  dangerous 
classes  that  hospitals  are  established.  There  are  a  mul- 
titude of  other  mental  conditions  that  require  their 
peculiar  ministrations,  and  many  other  ends  to  be  ob- 
tained besides  the  cure  of  the  patient,  and  the  safety  of 
his  friends.  The  comfort  of  individuals,  the  peace  of 
families,  the  good  order  of  society,  are  objects  as  clearly 
within  the  scope  of  the  operations  of  a  hospital,  as  the 
cure  of  the  curable  and  the  custody  of  the  dangerous. 
There  is  that  large  class  without  near  friends  or  rela- 
tives, whose  freaks  and  fancies  render  them  improper 
inmates  of  a  private  family.  There  are  those  who  wan- 
der from  their  homes,  and  expose  themselves  to  serious 
privations  and  dangers.  There  are  men  who  preach  or 
proclaim  their  delusions  in  the  streets,  followed  about 
by  a  rabble  of  men  and  boys.  There  are  women  who 
fancy  themselves  in  love  with  men,  and  persecute  them 
with  their  unseasonable  attentions.  There  are  those 
who  disregard  all  the  conventions  of  society,  entering 
houses  at  unsuitable  times,  dressing  without  thought  of 
the  customary  proprieties,  or  even  decencies,  stirring 
up  strife  between  neighbors,  spreading  discord  and  con- 
fusion wherever  they  go,  and  exciting  the  alarms  of  the 
weak  and  timid.  There  are  those  who,  while  under  the 
easy  and  uniform  restraints  of  a  hospital,  are  harmless 
and  comfortable,  but  become  dangerous  subjects  the 
moment  they  take  their  accustomed  place  in  society,  in 
full  control  of  themselves  and  their  families.  Now,  are 
all  these  afflicted  ones  to  be  denied  the  care  and  protec- 
tion of  the  hospital  because  they  are  neither  curable  nor 


CONFINEMENT    OF    THE   INSANE.  181 

technically  dangerous  ?  If  such  is  the  law,  have  we 
not  good  reason  to  say  that  the  law  is  regardless  of  that 
advance  in  Christian  sentiment,  which,  in  these  our 
days,  would  bring  within  the  benign  influences  of  the 
hospital  all  the  unfortunate  victims  of  mental  infirmity? 

In  the  Nyce  case,  the  judge  had  some  conversation 
with  the  patient,  on  the  strength  of  which  he  remarks, 
that  "it  must  be  conceded  that  the  relator  has  sufficient 
intelligence  to  remember  and  detail  the  history  of  his 
family  and  business  life  ;  "  and  concludes  that,  "  even  if 
partially  insane,  it  might  be  a  serious  question  whether 
a  court  upon  a  finding  of  lunacy  would  order  his  con- 
finement in  an  asylum."  In  other  words,  the  opinion  of 
the  judge  is,  that  partial  insanity  does  not  warrant  the 
confinement  of  the  insane.  We  are  not  told  precisely 
how  this  form  of  disease  differs  from  other  forms  ;'  and 
yet,  if  this  is  to  be  the  rule,  such  knowledge  would  seem 
to  be  indispensable.  Let  us  see,  then,  for  ourselves 
what  ground  there  is  for  this  distinction. 

The  use  of  certain  terms,  as  a  matter  of  convenience, 
rather  than  as  an  expression  of  a  scientific  fact,  has  led 
to  a  widely  prevalent  error  respecting  the  nature  of 
insanity.  Excepting  in  a  few  forms  of  mental  disease, 
such  as  raving  mania  and  the  last  stages  of  dementia, 
where  the  power  of  correct  reasoning  is  entirely  lost, 
some  of  the  mental  operations  of  the  insane  are  con- 
ducted with  ordinary  correctness.  On  many  subjects 
the  judgment  is  as  sound  as  ever,  the  power  of  adapting 
means  to  ends  is  unimpaired,  the  perception  of  moral 
relations  is  scarcely  obscured,  and  to  the  casual  observer 
no  indication  of  insanity  whatever  may  appear.  We  are 
not  referring  to  monomania,  strictly  so  called,  —  a  mania 
which  is  confined  to  a  single  idea,  —  but  to  insanity 
generally,  in  which  time   and  occasion  only  are  needed 


182  CONFINEMENT   OF   THE   INSANE. 

to  show  that  the  mental  operations  are  extensively  in- 
volved. They  may  show  that  this  person,  so  calm  in 
his  manner,  so  judicious  in  his  remarks,  so  pure  and 
high-toned  in  his  feelings,  entertains  notions  respecting 
the  doings  and  designs  of  certain  individuals,  as  baseless 
as  the  fabric  of  a  vision,  which  no  argument  nor  proof 
of  any  kind  can  make  him  abandon.  Impelled  by  these 
notions,  and  utterly  ignoring  the  laws  of  God  and  man, 
he  is  ready  to  commit  some  violence  upon  the  supposed 
offender,  as  if  it  were  something  both  right  and  neces- 
sary for  him  to  do.  Every  week  the  newspapers  relate 
some  dreadful  atrocity  committed  by  persons  who  were 
only  partially  insane.  Indeed,  it  is  this  very  ability,  still 
left  them,  to  pursue  a  connected  train  of  thought,  to  make 
plans  and  arrangements  for  future  action,  that  makes 
them  far  more  dangerous  than  those  are  whose  minds 
are  in  a  state  of  general  bewilderment  and  confusion. 
This  great  mistake  respecting  the  extent  of  the  morbid 
influence  exerted  by  disease  is  one  which  the  world  is 
reluctant  to  correct.  It  meets  our  notice  on  the  bench 
and  at  the  baj" ;  in  the  circles  of  the  refined  and  edu- 
cated, as  well  as  of  the  coarse  and  ignorant.  It  is  made 
an  occasion  of  hardship  and  wrong  to  the  unfortunate 
and  helpless,  and  blocks  the  way  to  every  improvement 
in  the  administration  of  the  laws. 

Another  reason  assigned  by  the  judge  why  a  person 
partially  insane  should  not  be  kept  in  an  asylum  is  de- 
rived from  Dugald  Stewart.  "  It  is  a  question,"  says 
this  eminent  philosopher,  "  whether  certain  kinds  of 
insanity  have  not  a  contagious  tendency.  That  the  in- 
coherent ravings  and  frantic  gestures  of  a  madman  have 
a  singularly  painful  effect  in  unsettling  and  deranging 
the  thoughts  of  others,  I  have  more  than  once  experi- 
enced in  myself;  nor  have  I  ever  looked  upon  this  most 


CONFINEMENT   OF   THE    INSANE.  lSo 

afflicting  of  all  spectacles,  without  a  strong  impression 
of  the  danger  to  which  I  should  be  exposed  if  I  were  to 
witness  it  daily."  All  this  amounts  to  nothing  except 
to  show  what  wretched  logic  even  a  great  metaphysician 
may  be  guilty  of.  It  is  very  much  as  if  he  had  said  :  "  I 
am  so  terribly  afflicted  with  bunions,  that  it  gives  me 
extreme  pain  to  walk  a  quarter  of  a  mile  :  therefore  I 
advise  everybody  to  refrain  entirely  from  walking;  "  or, 
"  I  have  more  than  once  experienced  great  pain  and 
irritation  in  my  eyes  when  reading  by  gas-light,  there- 
fore every  man  who  reads  by  gas-light  does  it  at  the 
peril  of  Ills  eyes.*'  Although  not  strictly  germane  to 
the  matter  in  hand,  we  cannot  forego  the  opportunity 
to  say  that  Mr.  Stewart's  experience  is  exceptional ;  that 
of  the  hundreds  of  sane  people,  within  our  cognizance, 
who  have  been  closely  associated  with  the  insane  in 
large  establishments,  for  years  together,  we  cannot  call 
to  mind  one  who  became  insane,  or  was  likely  to  be  so. 
No  doubt  where  there  is  a  strong  disposition  to  the  dis- 
ease, such  association  tends  to  develop  it ;  and  this  effect 
is  especially  obvious  where  the  parties  brought  together 
are  nearly  related,  and  the  offices  of  care  and  attention 
naturally  incident  to  such  relation  draw  largely  on  the 
bodily  strength  and  the  moral  emotions.  The  danger 
arising  from  this  cause  is  often  a  sufficient  reason  for 
removing  the  patient  from  home  and  the  customary  sur- 
roundings. But,  however  that  may  be,  the  question 
is  not  as  to  the  effect  upon  sane  people  of  intimate  asso- 
ciation with  the  insane.  Even  if  it  were  as  bad  as  the 
court  would  have  us  believe  it  is,  it  would  not  follow 
that  the  partially  insane  would  be  likely  to  lose  the  little 
sanity  that  remains,  by  associating  with  persons  more 
insane  than  themselves.  Such  is  not  the  experience  of 
men  who  have  had  charge  of  thousands  of  patients  and 


184  CONFINEMENT   OF    THE   INSANE. 

observed  them  under  every  possible  variety  of  influence. 
For  the  most  part,  the  insane  are  too  much  occupied 
with  their  own  condition  to  be  troubled  by  the  conduct 
or  discourse  of  others.  A  few,  perhaps,  would  find 
fresh  occasion  for  their  morbid  suspicions  and  alarms, 
by  being  exposed,  indiscriminately,  to  other  patients  ; 
but  it  must  be  understood  that,  in  modern  hospitals  for 
the  insane,  the  means  of  classification  are  so  ample  that 
the  mischief  which  might  result  from  improper  associa- 
tions is  reduced  to  almost  nothing.  Those  who  are 
likely  to  annoy  one  another  are  easily  kept  apart,  and 
those  are  brought  together  who  would  exert  a  salutary, 
or  at  least  a  negative,  influence  on  others  around  them. 
If  the  court  supposed  that  the  relator,  in  this  case,  was 
in  danger  from  his  associations,  it  is  to  be  regretted  that 
the  medical  gentlemen  who  had  charge  of  him  were  not 
particularly  examined  on  that  point.  Their  testimony 
would  have  furnished  far  better  grounds  for  a  practical 
conclusion,  than  the  nervous  apprehensions  of  Dugald 
Stewart. 

Another  reason  advanced  by  the  court  for  the  dis- 
charge of  Nyce  is  strictly  legal;  yet,  without  undue 
presumption,  we  think  we  may  venture  to  examine  it. 
"  A  judge,"  it  is  alleged,  "  has  no  power  upon  habeas 
corpus,  to  make  a  decree  which  may  result  in  imprison- 
ment for  life,  without  the  chance  of  a  jury  trial.  .  .  . 
A  man  is  sent  to  an  insane  asylum  by  his  relatives  and 
family  physician.  They  institute  no  proceeding  in 
lunacy,  but  deprive  him  of  liberty  and  property,  with- 
out any  direct  sanction  of  law.  ...  At  last  he  is  able 
to  sue  out  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  and  comes  before  a 
judge  who  cannot  be  expected  to  be  an  expert  upon 
such  a  question,  and  who,  looking  at  the  evidence,  con- 
cludes that  the  man  is  insane,  and  remands  him.     It  is 


CONFINEMENT    OF    THE   IXSAXE.  185 

then  res  adjudicata,  and  it  might  be  that  no  other  judge 
would  review  the  decision.  Thus,  without  a  finding  of 
lunacy,  without  the  right  of  traverse  to  a  jury,  or  appeal 
to  the  Supreme  Court  to  correct  errors  in  the  proceed- 
ing, a  man  may  be  detained  for  life." 

Xow,  to  our  apprehension,  no  mode  of  legal  procedure 
is  so  well  calculated  to  determine  the  truth  in  cases  like 
these,  as  a  hearing  under  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus.  The 
judge  is  not  an  expert,  it  is  true ;  neither  are  jurymen. 
He  can  have  the  testimony  of  experts,  and  they  can  do 
no  better.  In  regard  to  these  as  well  as  other  witnesses, 
he  enjoys  a  privilege  that  does  not  exist  in  a  jury  trial. 
He  can  continue  the  hearings  until  he  has  had  the  fullest 
opportunity  to  learn  the  merits  of  the  case.  Supposed, 
as  he  is,  to  be  a  man  of  considerable  culture  and  some 
knowledge  of  men,  he  would  be  far  more  likely  to  weigh 
the  evidence  correctly  and  discern  its  real  significance, 
than  the  majority  of  jurymen,  who  are  totally  unfitted 
by  education  and  habits  to  appreciate  the  value  of 
testimony  on  a  question  so  strictly  professional  as  that 
of  insanity,  to  say  nothing  of  their  liability  to  be  gov- 
erned by  prejudices  or  whims.  Surely,  if  there  is  any 
description  of  cases  more  likely  to  be  adjudicated  cor- 
rectly by^judgejjmn  by  a  jury^ihis  is  it.  We  cannot 
see  how  a  case  thus  disposed  of  becomes  res  adjudicata, 
in  the  sense  attributed  to  it  by  the  court.  What  is  to 
prevent  the  same  or  any  other  judge  from  reviewing  the 
case  after  the  lapse  of  a  few  months?  The  condition  of 
the  person  may  have  so  changed  within  that  period  as 
to  furnish  satisfactory  reasons  for  again  issuing  the  writ. 
Certainly,  no  judge  would  refuse  to  grant  the  writ,  un- 
der such  circumstances.  Neither  is  it  very  clear  how 
the  decision  of  a  judge  can  keep  a  patient  in  confine- 
ment for  life  any  more  effectually  than  the  verdict  of  a 


186  CONFINEMENT   OF   THE   INSANE. 

jury.  They  both  fulfil  their  appropriate  purpose  of  de- 
claring authoritatively  as  to  an  existing  state  of  facts. 
What  the  facts  may  be  at  some  future  period,  it  is  for 
future  judges  to  determine.  The  verdict  of  a  jury  con- 
vened by  a  commission  of  lunacy  does  not  place  a  man 
in  confinement.  It  may  authorize  the  guardian  or  com- 
mittee to  do  it,  and  his  action  could  be  traversed  only 
by  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus.  Without  that,  it  may  be  a 
confinement  for  life,  if  he  and  the  keeper  will  it. 

Another  reason  assigned  by  the  court  for  its  decision 
in  this  case  is,  that  a  judge  may  err;  and  in  this  con- 
nection the  opinion  of  Spurzheim  is  quoted,  that  even 
experts  may  err,  for  they  certainly  disagree.  Unques- 
tionably, judges  and  experts  are  both  liable  to  mistake  ; 
nevertheless,  the  law  requires  that  in  certain  cases  the 
judge  shall  decide  without  the  intervention  of  a  jury, 
and  permits  experts  to  testify,  however  widely  they  may 
differ  from  one  another.  Their  differences  may  embar- 
rass a  jury  even  more  than  they  would  a  judge,  unless 
it  determines  in  the  outset,  after  the  manner  of  juries, 
to  give  no  heed  to  them  whatever.  "  Spurzheim,"  says 
the  court,  "  was  not  willing  to  trust  the  solution  of  such 
questions  to  the  medical  experts."  What  Spurzheim 
actually  said  will  hardly  bear  this  construction  ;  for  his 
statement,  as  quoted  by  the  court,  is,  that,  "  as  sometimes 
the  most  experienced  and  able  men  are  at  a  loss  and  find 
it  impossible  to  decide  whether  there  is  insanity  or  not, 
it  must  be  obvious  that  not  every  one  who  knows  how 
to  compose  some  prescriptions  ought  to  be  trusted  with 
the  privilege  to  dispose  of  the  liberty  of  his  fellow-citi- 
zens;" meaning,  of  course,  that,  as  the  most  accomplished 
expert  may  sometimes  doubt,  it  would  be  improper 
to  rely  on  the  opinion  of  a  mere  compounder  of  pre- 
scriptions.     He  expresses  neither  willingness   nor  un- 


CONFINEMENT    OF   THE   INSANE.  187 

willingness  to  trust  the  solution  of  such  questions  to 
medical  experts,  for  that  was  not  the  point  he  was 
considering. 

The  reason  assigned  in  the  case  of  Moore,  for  the  dis- 
charge of  the  patient,  would  be  equally  applicable  in  a 
large  proportion  of  the  cases  in  our  hospitals,  and  there- 
fore deserves  to  be  carefully  examined.  Undoubtedly 
there  is  a  patient,  now  and  then,  whose  convalescence 
would  be  as  speedily  conducted  to  the  last  stage  of  re- 
covery at  home  as  in  a  hospital ;  but  it  is  difficult  to 
distinguish  them  from  the  much  larger  portion  who 
would  be  grievously  injured  by  the  change.  Friends 
often  solicit  it,  and  no  duty  incumbent  on  the  physician 
is  more  embarrassing,  requiring  a  readier  discernment  of 
the  countless  phases  of  mental  disorder,  more  practical 
sagacity  in  penetrating  beneath  the  surface,  than  that 
of  meeting  their  wishes  judiciously.  In  most  instances 
where  the  step  is  taken  against  his  advice,  the  experiment 
fails  ;  and  a  protracted  continuance  of  the  disease,  if  not 
an  utterly  incurable  condition,  is  the  result.  And  the 
cause  will  be  obvious  on  a  little  reflection.  The  period 
of  convalescence  is  precisely  the  particular  stage  when 
the  peculiar  management  of  the  hospital  is  most  needed 
to  complete  this  process  surely  and  safely.  The  patient's 
reason  has  returned  ;  he  sees  things  and  persons  in  their 
true  aspect ;  he  feels  that  buoyancy  of  spirit  which 
usually  accompanies  returning  health ;  he  becomes  im- 
patient of  confinement  because  he  cannot  see  its  neces- 
sity ;  his  friends  yield  to  his  importunities,  and  he 
becomes  again  the  master  of  his  own  movements.  With 
a  brain  still  weak  and  irritable,  wanting  that  firmness 
which  only  time  and  rest  can  give,  he  turns  a  deaf  ear 
to  all  advice,  resumes  at  once  his  ordinary  habits  and 
pursuits,   soon   uses   up   all  his   little   power  of  endur- 


188  CONFINEMENT    OF   THE   INSANE. 

ance,  loses  all  self-control,  and  again  passes  under  the 
cloud. 

Such  was  actually  the  result  in  Moore's  case.  A  few 
weeks  after  his  discharge  he  died  of  brain  disease, 
precipitated,  probably,  by  the  premature  removal  of  all 
restraint.  Had  he  continued  a  few  weeks  longer  under 
the  gentle  restraints  of  the  hospital,  and  its  carefully 
measured  indulgences,  the  requisite  degree  of  nervous 
firmness  might  have  been  acquired,  and  he  would  thus 
have  been  prepared  to  encounter  successfully  the  trials 
of  unrestricted  freedom.  The  courts  may  only  claim 
the  right  to  discharge  those  whose  convalescence  is 
fully  established  ;  but,  in  thus  deciding  what  is  a  purely 
medical  question,  let  them  consider  that  they  assume  the 
functions  of  the  physician.  If  the  physician  hesitates  to 
take  this,  perhaps  the  most  important,  step  in  the  man- 
agement of  an  insane  patient,  still  discerning  under  his 
constant  observation  some  lingering  traces  of  disease, 
some  indications  of  irritability  that  might  be  readily 
converted  into  uncontrollable  excitement,  well  may  the 
judge  shrink  from  assuming  the  delicate  and  responsible 
duty. 

This  review  of  the  judicial  aspects  of  the  case  shows 
that  the  common  law  is  quite  unreliable  for  any  practi- 
cal purpose.  By  one  court,  it  is  decided  that  the  friends 
of  an  insane  person  have  no  right  to  confine  him,  except 
to  meet  some  pressing  emergency,  and  then  only  for  a 
period  long  enough  to  enable  them  to  resort  to  some 
legal  process.  By  another  it  is  decided  that  they  may 
thus  dispose  of  him  as  long  as  he  continues  to  be  dan- 
gerous." By  one  court,  this  matter  of  danger  is  regarded 
as  strictly  medical,  to  be  determined  by  experts  ;  by 
another  it  is  treated  as  if  it  were  clearly  within  the 
province  of  the  court,  the  opinions  of  the  experts  being 


CONFINEMENT   OF   THE   INSANE.  189 

overruled,  it  may  be,  by  the  opinions  of  the  judge.  One 
court  recognizes  this  right  of  friends  to  confine  the  pa- 
tient without  regard  to  any  particular  element  of  the 
disease,  but  decides  that  it  terminates  when  the  stage 
of  convalescence  begins.  Another  decides  that  this 
right  is  absolute  and  unconditional,  unrestricted  by  any 
stage  or  quality  of  the  disease.  It  is  obvious,  there- 
fore, that  additional  legislation  is  required  in  most  of  the 
States,  and  the  question  is  thus  directly  before  us  as  to 
the  legal  provisions  that  would  most  effectually  meet 
the  necessities  of  the  case.  And  let  us  first  clearly  un- 
derstand what  these  necessities  are. 

In  the  first  place,  the  law  should  put  no  hinderance 
in  the  way  to  the  prompt  use  of  those  instrumentalities 
which  are  regarded  as  most  effectual  in  promoting  the 
comfort  and  restoration  of  the  patient.  Secondly,  it 
should  spare  all  unnecessary  exposure  of  private  trou- 
bles, and  all  unnecessary  conflict  with  popular  preju- 
dices. Thirdly,  it  should  protect  individuals  from 
wrongful  imprisonment.  It  would  be  objection  enough 
to  any  legal  provision,  that  it  failed  to  secure  these 
objects,  in  the  completest  possible  manner. 

It  is  a  fair  question,  certainly,  whether  the  forms  and 
processes  now  in  use  would  not  sufficiently  answer  the 
purpose,  if  applied  to  all  cases  indiscriminately.  This 
question  we  propose  to  answer. 

In  every  State,  the  law  provides  for  the  appointment 
of  a  tutor,  guardian,  trustee,  or  committee,  who  has 
charge  of  the  person  and  estate  of  the  insane  person. 
In  some  States,  the  mode  of  procedure  is  a  simple  hear- 
ing before  some  judicial  officer,  who,  if  convinced  of  the 
person's  insanity,  appoints  a  guardian.  In  others,  some 
court  appoints  a  commission,  who,  acting  in  connection 
with  a  jury,  inquire  into  the  facts,  and  make  report  to 


190  CONFINEMENT   OF   THE   INSANE. 

the  court,  by  whom  a  guardian  or  committee  is  appointed. 
Now,  it  is  proposed  to  make  it  obligatory  on  the  family 
or  friends  of  the  patient  to  place  him  under  guardian- 
ship, in  order  to  procure  his  admission  to  any  hospital 
for  the  insane.  It  would  be  a  sufficient  objection  to 
this  course,  that  there  is  no  necessary  relation  between 
the  two  things,  —  placing  a  person  in  a  hospital  for  the 
purpose  of  procuring  his  recovery,  and  subjecting  him 
to  interdiction.  This  is  clearly  shown  by  the  customs 
of  our  people  ;  for  of  the  thousands  of  persons  in  our 
hospitals  and  asylums,  not  one  in  twenty  is  under  guar- 
dianship. Had  there  been  any  thing  essentially  wrong 
in  this,  it  would  hardly  have  been  left  to  this  day  and 
generation  to  discover  it.  No  one,  with  any  practical 
knowledge  of  the  matter,  —  of  the  feelings  and  motives 
that  govern  men  when  brought  face  to  face  with  the 
question  of  confining  an  insane  friend,  —  can  fail  to  see 
that  this  course  is  quite  incompatible  with  the  first  two 
requisites  above  mentioned.  What  is  implied  by  inter- 
diction ?  It  implies  the  taking  of  property  out  of  the 
hands  of  its  rightful  owner,  and  giving  the  control  of  it 
to  another.  It  implies,  perhaps,  the  settlement  of  his 
affairs,  the  termination  of  his  business  relations,  the  dis- 
solution of  partnership,  the  resignation  of  every  office 
of  honor  or  trust,  —  all  in  a  manner  more  or  less  preju- 
dicial to  his  interests,  and  solely  to  meet  an  exigency 
that  may  be  of  very  brief  duration.  Surely  an  attack 
of  insanity  is  afflictive  enough,  without  any  supererog- 
atory misery  like  this.  It  would  be  difficult  to  give 
even  a  plausible  reason  why  a  person  laboring  under  a 
disease  of  the  mind  should  be  treated  so  differently,  in 
this  respect,  from  one  sick  with  pneumonia  or  fever. 
Nobody  thinks  of  placing  the  latter  under  guardian- 
ship, in  order  to  get  him  into  a   fever  hospital ;   and 


CONFINEMENT    OF    THE    INSANE.  191 

yet  he  may  be  confined  to  his  house,  and  incapable  of 
taking  care  of  himself,  for  as  long  a  period  as  the 
former. 

There  is  another  and  a  very  important  reason  why 
this  measure  should  be  avoided  if  possible.  When  the 
patient  comes  to  himself,  and  learns  that  his  business, 
successfully  established  by  many  years  of  industry  and 
enterprise,  has  been  wound  up,  perhaps,  at  considerable 
sacrifice,  and  that  he  is  unable  to  dispose  of  a  single 
dollar  of  his  hard  earnings,  the  intelligence  will  scarcely 
help  to  promote  his  recovery.  It  would  lead  many 
to  think  that  admission  to  the  hospital  is  purchased 
at  too  dear  a  rate  ;  and,  if  they  had  been  filled  with 
suspicions  and  apprehensions,  they  would  find  in  it  con- 
firmation of  their  fears,  and  imbibe  feelings  of  hostility 
that  might  remain  after  all  other  traces  of  disease  had 
disappeared.  And  when  released  from  restraint,  in- 
stead of  being  welcomed  back  to  their  old  pursuits  and 
the  familiar  scenes,  and  cheered  by  the  fact  that  their 
business  relations  had  been  maintained  at  little  or  no 
loss,  they  find  themselves  obliged  to  renew  the  struggle 
of  life,  in  new  ways  and  with  new  associates;  and  fortu- 
nate will  they  be  if  the  effort  prove  not  too  much  for  a 
brain  rendered  morbidly  irritable  by  recent  disease. 
Physicians  who  have  charge  of  hospitals  for  the  insane 
are  in  the  habit  of  advising  the  postponement  of  inter- 
diction to  the  latest  moment ;  and  in  a  public  communi- 
cation the  English  Commissioners  in  Lunacy  once  gave 
similar  advice.  "  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  observe/'  they 
say,  "  that  proceedings  by  commission  are,  generally 
speaking,  advisable  only  where  the  insanity  is  likely  to 
be  of  a  permanent  character.  .  .  .  "Wherever  a  reason- 
able hope  of  recovery  exists,  and  the  income  of  the 
lunatic  can,  in  the  mean  time,  be  properly  administered 


192  CONFINEMENT    OF   THE    INSANE. 

for  his  benefit,  without  a  commission,  the  general  prac- 
tice among  the  friends  and  relatives  of  the  insane  is  to 
avoid  resorting  to  proceedings  which  entail  unnecessary 
cost,  which,  by  the  disclosures  they  occasion,  are  most 
painful  to  the  feelings  of  the  family,  and  which,  by  the 
excitement  they  produce,  are  sometimes  injurious  to  the 
patient  himself." 

It  is  easy  to  see,  in  view  of  such  discouragements, 
what  would  be  done  with  the  patient,  or  rather  what 
would  not  be  done  with  him.  He  certainly  would  not 
be  sent  to  a  hospital,  if  by  any  possibility  he  could  be 
kept  at  home,  or  somewhere  else.  Every  makeshift 
would  be  resorted  to  that  friends  and  neighbors  could 
suggest,  every  experiment  would  be  tried  offering  the 
least  prospect  of  success.  Not  until  all  these  had  had 
their  turn  and  failed,  and  the  friends  had  become 
wearied  and  worried  to  the  last  point  of  endurance, 
the  patient  meanwhile  getting  more  and  more  difficult 
to  manage,  would  the  hateful  measure  be  submitted 
to,  which  is  needed  for  his  admission  to  the  hospital, 
too  late,  probably,  for  any  benefit  from  its  kindly  influ- 
ences. 

It  is  now  well  understood  that,  in  most  cases,  an 
attack  of  insanity  is  most  speedily  conducted  through 
its  various  stages  towards  recovery,  within  those  estab- 
lishments that  have  been  expressly  designed  for  this 
purpose  :  and  that  the  sooner  they  are  resorted  to,  the 
better,  unless  special  and  exceptional  circumstances 
forbid  it.  Experience  shows  that  the  sooner  all  connec- 
tion with  domestic  associations  and  familiar  scenes  is 
severed,  and  all  intercourse  with  friends  and  acquaint- 
ances suspended,  the  sooner  the  morbid  process  will  be 
stayed,  and  the  work  of  restoration  begun.  Whatever 
tends  to  discourage  this  measure,  —  to  favor  its  post- 


CONFINEMENT   OF   THE   INSANE.  193 

ponement   until   every   other  has   been   tried    and   has 
failed,  must  prove  prejudicial,  both  to  the  patient  and 
his  friends.     It  does  not  meet  the  difficulty  to  say  that 
this  reluctance  is  unreasonable,  a  mere  matter  of  preju- 
dice, and  that  if  people  refuse  to  comply  with  the  laws 
they  must  abide  by  the  consequences.     It  is  not  very 
unreasonable,  surely,  to  wish  to  avoid  a  certain  positive 
evil,  though  at  the  risk  of  encountering  a  greater  one 
that  may  never  happen.     It  is  immaterial  whether  the 
measure  in  question  were  avoided  for  the  wisest  of  rea- 
sons or  for  the  most  senseless  of  prejudices.     We  must 
legislate  for  men  as   they  are,  not  as   they  should  be, 
having  reference   to  their  customs  and  feelings,  as  well 
as   their  abstract   sense  of  right  and  of  the  fitness  of 
things.      Laws,    the    best    in   the    world,    theoretically 
considered,   fail  to   effect   their   purpose    when    not   in 
harmony  with   the    ways,  manners,  usages,   and  spirit 
of  the    people    for  whom  they    are    made.     Believing, 
therefore,    that    to    make    interdiction    preliminary    to 
isolation  would    cause  infinitely  more  mischief  than  it 
would  prevent,  we  are  obliged  to  look  for  some  other 
way  less  burdened  with  objections. 

In  most  if  not  all  of  the  States,  there  is  a  provision 
whereby  a  magistrate,  generally  of  the  lowest  grade,  is 
authorized  to  send  to  some  place  of  custody  any  insane 
person  going  at  large  and  declared  to  be  dangerous, 
though  these  conditions  are  much  like  those  fictions  of 
the  law  that  are  not  to  be  literally  construed.  Although 
originally  intended  as  a  measure  of  police,  applicable 
to  insane  vagrants,  it  is  sometimes  used  to  secure  the 
isolation  of  persons  having  friends  and  social  position. 
But  there  are  serious  objections  to  its  being  employed 
for  this  purpose.  Having  been  in  use  from  time  imme- 
morial as  a   police  measure,  and  consequently   associ- 

13 


194  CONFINEMENT    OF   THE   INSANE. 

ated  with  the  idea  of  vagrants  and  dangerous  subjects, 
the  friends,  naturally  enough,  shrink  from  it ;  and  the 
patient,  if  not  entirely  devoid  of  reason,  conceives  that 
he  is  treated  as  a  criminal,  and  is  vexed  and  irritated 
accordingly.  Nevertheless,  it  has  some  advantages 
over  the  last-mentioned  measure.  It  is  prompt  in  its 
operation,  and  affects  the  person  only,  and  not  the 
property. 

People  who  have  little  knowledge  of  insanity,  and  a 
great  deal  of  faith  in  time-honored  phrases,  have  pro- 
posed, as  a  preventive  of  the  abuses  incident  to  isola- 
tion, a  trial  by  jury,  impanelled  especially  for  the 
purpose.  This  method  has  been  actually  adopted  in 
Illinois  by  legislative  enactment,  under  a  pressure  of 
popular  excitement  arising  from  accidental  causes. 
Except  that  it  leaves  the  property  undisturbed,  it  is 
open  to  all  the  objections  that  lie  against  the  measures 
already  considered.  It  is  equally  shocking  to  every 
notion  of  domestic  propriety,  and  equally  repugnant  to 
that  instinctive  delicacy  which  shrinks  from  exposing 
the  infirmities  of  those  we  love.  A  jury  trial  is  a  pub- 
lic affair;  the  proceedings  may  be  printed  in  the  news- 
papers, and  the  griefs  of  a  stricken  family  become  food 
for  heartless  gossip.  A  grosser  perversion  of  this  noble 
institution  from  its  proper  ends  can  scarcely  be  imag- 
ined. Although  an  admirable  contrivance  for  eliciting 
truth  in  disputed  transactions  between  man  and  man,  it 
is  totally  unsuitable  as  a  means  of  obtaining  correct 
results  in  regard  to  questions  purely  scientific.  When 
we  are  told  that  in  the  place  where  it  was  adopted,  all 
the  patients  in  a  large  public  hospital  —  the  epileptic 
and  the  paralytic,  the  idiotic  and  the  imbecile,  the  rav- 
ing maniac  and  the  poor  demented  creature  not  knowing 
his  right  Jiand  from  his  left  —  were   subjected  to  its 


CONFINEMENT    OF    THE   INSANE.  195 

operation,  it  seems  more  like  a  phantasmagoric  jumble 
of  social  and  legal  proprieties, — 

"  The  brood  of  folly  without  father  bred,"  — 

than  the  work  of  the  assembled  wisdom  of  a  large  and 
intelligent  State. 

Let  us  look  at  it  for  a  moment.  The  question  for  the 
jury  to  decide  is  whether  the  person  before  them  is 
sane  or  insane.  The  friends  and  attendants  tell  their 
story,  the  family  physician,  and  perhaps  other  experts, 
give  their  opinions,  and  then  the  jury  must  agree  or 
disagree  upon  a  verdict.  In  will  or  contract  cases 
where  the  mental  condition  of  the  party  is  in  question, 
there  are  always  side  issues  on  which  a  verdict  may  be 
made  to  rest,  irrespective  entirely  of  the  principal  issue. 
But  here  the  naked  question,  sanity  or  insanity,  covers 
the  only  possible  issue,  and  it  must  be  squarely 
met.  If  they  are  sensible  men,  they  will  be  governed 
by  the  views  of  the  experts.  If,  as  is  more  probable, 
they  think  that  they,  as  well  as  doctors,  know  some- 
thing about  insanity,  they  will  have  an  opinion  of  their 
own,  and  decide  accordingly.  Now,  in  the  former  in- 
stance, it  is  the  experts  who  really  decide  the  case,  and 
the  jury  becomes  a  superfluous  appendage  to  the  pro- 
cedure. In  the  latter,  a  question  of  medical  science, 
involving  the  happiness  of  families,  and  the  highest  wel- 
fare of  an  individual,  is  determined  by  men  completely 
ignorant  of  the  whole  subject.  In  all  jury  trials,  the 
jury  are  not  allowed  to  be  judges  of  the  law.  Are  they 
any  more  competent  to  be  judges  of  medicine  ?  If  it 
were  a  question  between  medical  men  whether  a  certain 
patient  had  this  or  that  affection  of  the  heart,  or  whether 
another  is  suffering  from  rheumatism  or  neuralgia,  who 
would  think  of  submitting  it  to  a  jury  of  twelve  men 


196  CONFINEMENT    OF   THE   INSANE. 

drawn  from  the  common  walks  of  life  ?  And  yet  this  is 
just  like  what  we  propose  to  do  when  we  undertake  to 
settle  the  question  of  insanity  by  means  of  such  a  tribu- 
nal. Only  those  who  are  well  acquainted  with  the 
popular  notions  of  insanity  can  conceive  how  futile  the 
result  would  be.  For  twenty-five  years  the  writer  of 
this  was  in  charge  of  a  hospital  for  the  insane  ;  and  of 
the  many  hundred  patients  under  his  care,  —  setting 
aside  the  raving  and  the  demented,  —  there  was  scarcely 
one  who  was  not  regarded  by  some  friend,  neighbor,  or 
acquaintance,  as  unequivocally  sane.  The  most  com- 
mon forms  of  insanity  —  those  which  include  the  great 
majority  of  cases  —  are  regarded,  by  many  people,  no 
small  portion  of  whom  may  be  found  among  the  refined 
and  educated  classes,  as  any  thing  but  insanity.  So 
surely  as  this  question  is  given  to  a  jury  who  under- 
take to  think  for  themselves,  just  so  surely  will  they  err 
in  their  verdict  or  fail  to  agree  upon  any. 

People  who  expect  to  find  in  legislation  a  panacea  for 
all  social  evils  have  imagined  that  the  requirements  of 
the  case  would  be  met  by  the  appointment  of  a  commis- 
sion whose  business  it  should  be  to  take  cognizance  of 
every  case  proposed  for  admission  into  a  hospital,  and 
give  or  withhold  its  sanction.  It  might  be  a  permanent 
board  consisting  of  a  few  members,  or  the  duty  might 
be  performed  in  each  town  or  county  by  some  resident 
therein  appointed  especially  for  this  purpose.  While 
this  is  regarded  as  a  mere  matter  of  form,  very  little  can 
be  said  against  it,  or  for  it.  But,  in  order  to  prevent  the 
abuses  which  are  supposed  to  be  so  imminent,  a  regular 
inquisition  is  necessary,  conducted  strictly  according  to 
the  forms  of  law.  Any  good  which  this  procedure  may 
possibly  accomplish  would  be  obtained  at  the  sacrifice 
of  many  important  objects.     For  observe  how  it  would 


CONFINEMENT    OF    THE    INSANE.  197 

work  practically  in  a  case  of  acute  mania,  as  it  often 
appears.  The  patient  is  noisy,  boisterous,  and  self- 
sufficient,  bent  on  going  out  about  bis  business,  and 
threatening  violence  to  all  who  endeavor  to  prevent  it. 
He  refuses  proper  food  and  medicine,  perhaps  insists  on 
having  stimulants,  and  requires  the  unremitted  attention 
of  two  or  three  men.  The  house  is  in  confusion,  the 
family  are  frightened,  attendants  are  obtained  with  dif- 
ficulty, and  every  day  reveals  some  fresh  phase  of  the 
trouble.  Endurance  is  possible  no  longer,  and  applica- 
tion is  made  to  the  commissioner.  He  appoints  a  day 
for  hearing  the  case,  and  notice  is  given  accordingly  in 
the  public  papers.  Counsel  appear  for  the  patient  and 
solicit  more  time  for  preparation.  Of  course,  the  request 
must  be  granted,  and  another  week  or  ten  days  of  ago- 
nizing care  and  anxiety  must  be  endured.  At  the  trial, 
the  affairs  of  the  family  are  laid  open  to  the  public  gaze; 
the  actions  and  the  discourse  of  the  patient  are  described 
in  his  presence  by  those  who  would,  in  the  natural 
course  of  things,  regard  them  as  something  they  were 
bound  by  every  sentiment  of  honor  and  propriety  to 
conceal ;  and  when,  at  last,  the  commissioner  signs  the 
order  for  his  admission  to  the  hospital,  he  goes  with  re- 
doubled excitement,  and  with  tenfold  hostility  towards 
those  who  have  never  ceased  to  love  and  protect  him. 
If  the  patient  is  really  insane,  —  and  such  is  admitted  to 
be  the  fact  in  the  great  majority  of  cases, —  what  method 
could  be  better  calculated  to  exasperate  him  to  fury, 
and,  on  recovery,  to  fill  him  with  mortification  and 
bitter  feeling. 

In  view  of  the  very  strong  objections  that  lie  against 
all  these  methods,  it  becomes  a  fair  question  whether  we 
can  do  better  than  to  retain  the  old  one,  whereby  the 
relatives  assumed  the  management  of  the   case,   acting 


198  CONFINEMENT   OF   THE   INSANE. 

according  to  their  best  judgment  under  the  advice  of 
friends  and  physicians,  and  legalize  it  by  a  statutory 
enactment.  That  it  possesses  the  first  two  require- 
ments above  mentioned, —  the  prompt  isolation  of  the 
patient  and  the  relief  of  the  friends,  —  is  not  disputed. 
Can  it  not  be  accompanied  by  conditions  that  would 
secure  most  effectually  the  third  requirement  ?  If  it 
can  be  shown  that  this  matter  has  been  much  misunder- 
stood ;  that  the  apprehended  evil,  judging  from  the  past, 
is  one  of  the  very  smallest  dimensions  ;  and  that  by  suit- 
able safeguards  it  may  be  rendered  as  little  liable  to 
abuse  as  any  transaction  between  men,  then,  surely, 
there  can  be  no  reason  why  a  practice  so  natural,  so 
consonant  to  our  best  feelings,  and  so  conformable  to 
our  customs,  should  not  be  continued.  The  complaint 
is,  that  under  the  exercise  of  this  privilege  sane  men  and 
women  have  been  imprisoned  for  an  indefinite  time. 
That  such  a  thing  is  possible,  that  it  may  have  actually 
occurred,  we  do  not  deny.  But,  at  the  worst,  it  must 
have  been  of  very  rare  occurrence,  because  superintend- 
ents of  hospitals  who  have  had  charge  of  thousands  of 
patients,  and  whose  opportunities  of  knowing,  therefore, 
are  larger  than  those  of  all  other  persons  put  together, 
tell  us  they  have  met  with  scarcely  a  single  case  of 
wrongful  imprisonment;  and  because  the  alleged  cases 
when  impartially  investigated  do  not  sustain  the  com- 
plaint. The  prevalent  notion  on  this  subject  has  been 
derived,  in  some  measure,  from  novels  and  periodicals, 
where  cases  of  this  kind,  by  the  license  allowed  to  such 
writers,  have  been  used  to  heighten  the  interest  of  the 
story.  It  only  indicates  that  change  in  modern  civiliza- 
tion whereby  much  of  the  old  machinery  of  the  poet  and 
story-teller  has  become  effete;  and  thus  it  happens  that 
the  castle  and  convent  and  poor  debtor's  prison,  as  places 


CONFINEMENT    OF    THE   INSANE.  199 

for  confining  luckless  heroes  and  heroines,  have  given 
way  to  lunatic  asylums.  They  have  mauy  qualifications 
for  this  purpose.  Their  walls  are  strong,  their  windows 
barred,  their  doors  locked  ;  and,  though  utterly  devoid  of 
cells  and  dungeons,  it  required  no  great  stretch  of  the 
imagination  to  conjure  them  up.  Thus,  it  is  not  strange 
that  readers  who  readily  believe  whatever  they  find  in 
print  should  get  the  impression  that  cases  so  repre- 
sented are,  if  not  literal  facts,  founded  in  fact,  and  ex- 
press an  actual  reality. 

But  the  most  prolific  source  of  the  prevalent  impres- 
sion on  this  subject  is,  unquestionably,  the  stories  of  the 
insane  themselves.  Generally,  insane  people  do  not  re- 
gard themselves  as  insane,  and  consequently  can  see 
no  reason  for  their  confinement  other  than  the  malevo- 
lent designs  of  those  who  have  deprived  them  of  their 
liberty.  And  they  are  all  the  more  inclined  to  this 
conclusion  by  feelings  of  hostility  already  engendered 
towards  their  friends  and  all  others  who  have  exercised 
any  control  over  their  movements.  Many  of  them  are 
discharged,  much  improved,  perhaps,  but  before  they 
have  fully  come  to  themselves,  and  regained  the  power 
of  seeing  their  relations  to  others  in  the  true  light. 
They  are  ready,  on  the  first  opportunity,  to  spread  their 
fancied  grievances  before  the  public,  and  often  with  a 
degree  of  ingenuity  that  deceives  even  the  cautious  and 
intelligent.  And  the  task  is  not  difficult.  A  story  cir- 
cumstantially and  plausibly  told  is  universally  regarded 
as  presumptively  true ;  and,  if  it  is  one  of  oppression 
and  wrong,  it  enlists  the  deepest  sympathies  of  the 
hearer.  The  hero  or  heroine  of  the  story  is  invested 
with  the  character  of  a  martyr,  and  people  are  filled  with 
ndignation  and  wrath  at  the  thought  of  an  act  of  high- 
anded  oppression  having  been  perpetrated  in  the  very 


200  CONFINEMENT   OF   THE   INSANE. 

midst  of  them.  Even  if  the  exact  truth  of  the  case 
ever  comes  to  light, —  even  if  a  trial  at  law  reveal 
scenes  of  violence  occurring  day  after  day  for  weeks 
and  months  together  within  the  family  circle,  a  wife  or 
mother  beaten  and  cursed,  children  frightened  and  run- 
ning in  terror  from  the  house,  and  prove  the  existence 
of  delusions  as  gross  as  ever  usurped  the  seat  of  reason, 
—  it  fails  to  meet  the  eye  of  many  who  heard  the  origi- 
nal story,  or,  if  seen,  is  received  with  a  stronger  feeling 
than  mere  distrust.  Many  are  reluctant  to  admit  that 
they  have  been  deceived,  and  many  are  loath  to  give  the 
lie  to  what  has  afforded  them  a  thrilling  sensation. 

In  England  and  France  this  right  of  the  friends  of  an 
insane  person  to  place  him  in  a  hospital  without  any 
process  of  law  has  always  existed,  and  is  now  secured 
by  acts  of  the  legislature.  The  same  may  be  said  of 
Pennsylvania,  Massachusetts,  New  Hampshire,  Rhode 
Island,  and  several  other  States.  In  all  these  places 
the  law  requires  compliance  with  certain  conditions,  the 
general  purpose  of  which  is  to  prevent  abuses.  The 
principal  of  these  is  a  certificate  of  insanity  signed  by 
one  or  more  physicians,  and  the  application  of  some 
responsible  person.  In  the  "  project  of  a  law  for  regu- 
lating the  legal  relations  of  the  insane,"  which  was 
unanimously  sanctioned  by  the  "  Association  of  Medical 
Superintendents  of  North  American  Hospitals  for  the 
Insane,"  we  find  the  following  section  :  "  Insane  persons 
may  be  placed  in  a  hospital  for  the  insane  by  their  legal 
guardians,  or  by  their  relatives  or  friends  in  case  they 
have  no  guardians,  but  never  without  the  certificate  of 
one  or  more  reputable  physicians,  after  a  personal  ex- 
amination made  within  one  week  of  the  date  thereof; 
and  this  certificate  to  be  duly  acknowledged  before 
some  magistrate  or  judicial  officer  who  shall  certify  to 


CONFINEMENT    OF    THE   INSANE.  201 

the  genuineness  of  the  signature,  and  of  the  respecta- 
bility of  the  signer." 

Under  such  a  provision  the  insane  may  be  promptly, 
quietly,  and,  with  a  few  possible  exceptions,  rightfully, 
placed  by  their  friends  in  some  hospital  for  the  insane. 
For  the  possible  exceptions,  we  would  have  a  provision 
applicable  to  them  alone,  and  not,  at  the  same  time,  sub- 
jecting all  the  rest  to  positive  discomfort  and  injury.  In 
the  "  project  of  a  law  "  just  mentioned,  we  find  the  fol- 
lowing provision  :  "  On  a  written  statement  being  ad- 
dressed by  some  respectable  person  to  some  high  judicial 
officer,  that  a  certain  person  then  confined  in  a  hospital 
for  the  insane  is  not  insane,  and  is  thus  unjustly  deprived 
of  his  liberty,  the  judge,  at  his  discretion,  shall  appoint 
a  commission  of  not  less  than  three  nor  more  than  four 
persons,  one  of  whom,  at  least,  shall  be  a  physician,  and 
another  a  lawyer,  who  shall  hear  such  evidence  as  may 
be  offered  touching  the  merits  of  the  case,  and,  without 
summoning  the  party  to  meet  them,  shall  have  a  per- 
sonal interview  with  him,  so  managed  as  to  prevent  him, 
if  possible,  from  suspecting  its  objects.  They  shall  re- 
port their  proceedings  to  the  judge,  and  if,  in  their 
opinion,  the  party  is  not  insane,  the  judge  shall  issue  an 
order  for  his  discharge."  True,  this  only  abbreviates 
the  wrong :  it  does  not  prevent  it  altogether.  But  when 
we  consider  how  small  it  is,  compared  with  the  good 
which  is  accomplished,  may  we  not  fairly  regard  it  as 
one  of  the  unavoidable  results  of  that  imperfection  which 
is  incident  to  all  human  arrangements,  and  which  we 
witness  every  day  of  our  lives,  even  in  this  matter 
of  wrongful  imprisonment?  Men  are  arrested,  kept  in 
durance,  charged  with  a  criminal  offence,  and  yet  found 
on  trial  to  be  innocent  of  the  charge,  —  the  victims, 
perhaps,  of  conspiracy  or  perjury.     This  is  no  rare,  ex- 


202  CONFINEMENT   OF   THE   INSANE. 

traordinary  thing, —  one  case  in  ten  thousand, —  kindling 
the  wrath  of  every  newspaper-writer  in  the  land,  and 
calling  for  special  and  summary  legislation,  but  an  every- 
day occurrence,  exciting  as  little  feeling  as  the  most 
common  operations  of  nature.  We  are  told  very  calmly 
that  such  wrongs  are  a  part  of  the  price  we  pay  for 
public  order  and  good  government. 

Justice  to  all  parties  requires  some  such  legislation 
as  we  have  indicated.  That  it  would  prevent  all  popu- 
lar clamor,  we  do  not  believe.  Inasmuch  as  the  notion 
in  question — that  sane  people  are  shut  up  on  pretence 
of  insanity  —  has  little  or  no  foundation  in  reason,  it 
would  hardly  be  expected  that  it  would  be  amenable  to 
reason.  As  long  as  men  are  swift  to  believe  any  plau- 
sible story  of  wrong-doing,  without  inquiry  or  hesitation  j 
as  long  as  newspapers  can  find  in  such  stories  the  mate- 
rials of  a  great  sensation  ;  as  long  as  there  is  a  prevalent 
belief  that  no  one  is  insane  who  is  not  furiously  mad,  — 
so  lpng  will  the  confinement  of  the  insane  in  establish- 
ments expressly  designed  for  the  purpose  be  viewed 
with  feelings  of  distrust,  whatever  may  be  the  legal 
provisions  by  which  it  is  regulated. 


THE   CRIMINAL   LAW   OF   INSANITY. 


In  all  modern  Christian  communities,  insanity  has  been 
theoretically  considered  as  a  sufficient  excuse  for  criminal 
acts.  In  practice,  however,  it  has  not  always  had  that 
effect.  In  fact,  it  has  never  been  regarded  with  great 
favor,  either  by  the  learned  or  the  unlearned,  as  a  plea 
in  defence  of  crime.  This  sentiment  has  probably  sprung 
from  various  causes,  among  which  may  be  mentioned 
the  prevalent  ignorance  respecting  its  manifestations, 
the  obscurity  in  which  it  is  often  involved,  the  facility 
with  which  it  may  be  offered  to  screen  the  guilty  from 
merited  punishment,  and,  of  late,  the  frequency  of  the 
plea  arising  from  the  increased  prevalence  of  the  disease. 
Of  these,  the  principal,  no  doubt,  is  the  one  first  men- 
tioned, though  it  is  that  which  people  are  least  willing 
to  admit. 

In  some  of  its  forms,  insanity  can  scarcely  be  mis- 
taken, and  especially  in  those  which  are  marked  by 
raving :  but  persons  thus  affected  are  never  brought  to 
trial.  If,  however,  the  patient  is  tolerably  quiet,  says 
but  little,  and  that  little  coherently,  and  exhibits  only  a 
few  delusions  mixed  up  with  rational  ways  and  thoughts  ; 
if  he  is  only  filled  with  dismal  forebodings  and  over- 
whelmed by  a  sense  of  despair ;  if  he  has  only  yielded 
to  an  irresistible  impulse,  —  then  the  presence  of  disease 


204  THE   CRIMINAL  LAW  OF   INSANITY. 

is  not  so  obvious,  because  not  manifested  by  what  are 
popularly  supposed  to  be  its  proper  characters.  The 
traits  here  mentioned  were  either  not  regarded  as  those 
of  insanity,  in  any  proper  sense  of  the  word ;  or,  if  con- 
sidered to  be  the  result  of  disease,  and  to  that  extent 
implying  insanity,  they  were  not  supposed  to  deprive 
the  mind,  necessarily,  of  all  self-control,  which  may  and 
should  be  exerted  by  the  faculties  that  remain  beyond 
the  sphere  of  the  morbid  influence.  Or,  to  adopt  the 
distinctions  of  the  law,  they  may  not  deprive  the  mind 
of  those  elements  of  crime  which  consist  of  intention, 
free  will,  and  malice.  On  these  points  every  one  feels 
at  liberty  to  have  an  opinion  of  his  own ;  but,  being 
matters  of  scientific  observation,  it  is  obvious  they  can 
be  correctly  judged,  with  authority,  by  those  only  who 
have  had  professional  skill  and  experience.  Whether 
a  certain  trait  or  combination  of  traits  is  or  is  not  the 
offspring  of  disease,  is  a  question  of  fact  to  be  deter- 
mined by  observation  ;  and  to  undertake  to  determine  it 
without  such  qualification  is,  certainly,  no  mark  of  wis- 
dom. Yet  this  lawyers  virtually  do,  when  they  lay 
down  rules  respecting  the  effect  of  insanity  on  respon- 
sibility. 

Another  reason  for  the  backward  condition  of  the  law 
in  reference  to  insanity  is  the  persistent  habit  of  re- 
garding it  strictly  from  the  legal  point  of  view,  ignoring 
entirely  its  medical  aspects.  It  would  seem  to  be  a 
sufficiently  clear  and  satisfactory  notion,  that  a  certain 
person  is  innocent  of  the  crime  imputed  to  him,  because 
he  is  insane,  mad,  deranged,  beside  himself,  bereft  of 
his  reason,  as  the  fact  of  mental  disease  is  variously 
designated.  But  it  is  not  enough  for  the  lawyer.  It  is 
immaterial  to  him  whether  the  person  is  technically  sane 
or  insane.     He  only  wishes  to  know  whether  the  mind 


THE   CRIMINAL   LAW   OF    INSANITY.  206 

is  deprived  of  either  of  the  essential  elements  of  crime, 
above  mentioned.     Under  the  dominion  of  these  techni- 
cal views,  lawyers  are  unable  or  unwilling  to  recognize 
the  fact  well  understood  among  medical  men,  that  in- 
sanity exerts  an  influence  over  men's  thoughts  and  ac- 
tions completely  sui  generis.     How  far  they  are  willing 
to  receive  it  as  an  excuse  for  crime  depends  upon  the 
question  how  far  they  can  make  it  square  with  their 
notions  respecting  the  proper  ingredients  of  crime.    Did 
the  person  alleged  to  be  insane,  they  say,  know  that  the 
act  was  wrong  and  illegal  ?     Or,  in  other  words,  did  it 
indicate  those  qualities  of  mind  which  would  have  made 
it  criminal  in  one  whose  mental  condition  had  not  been 
questioned?     The  thoroughly  legal  mind,  while  admit- 
ting the  impropriety  of  punishing  a  person  for  an   act 
whose  nature  and  quality  he  could  not  discern  by  reason 
of  mental  impairment,  is  quite  unwilling  to  regard  in- 
sanity as,  per  se,  an  unconditional    excuse   for  crime. 
"  If,  notwithstanding  the  madness  of  the  accused,"  says 
Mr.  Stephen,  "  he  did  commit  a  crime,  it  is  impossible 
to  suggest  any  reason  why  he  should  not  be  punished 
for  it."  1  Which  is  equivalent  to  saying,  he  is  undoubtedly 
innocent,  but,  on  any  proper  construction  of  the  law,  he 
is  undoubtedly  guilty.     In  fact,  a  madman  reasons  ab- 
surdly, of  necessity,  and  is  unable  to  distinguish  a  gross 
delusion  from  an  objective  reality  ;  but,  says  the  lawyer, 
having  once  started  upon  a  course  of  reasoning  from 
false  premises,  the   successive  steps  of  his   reasoning 
should  follow  one  another  with  logical  precision.     "  A 
man  is  tried  for  wounding  with  intent  to  murder,"  says 
Mr.  Stephen.     "It  is  proved  that  he  inflicted  the  wound 
under  a  delusion  that  he  was  breaking  ajar.    The  intent  to 

1  General  View  of  the  Criminal  Law  of  England,  p.  96. 


206  THE   CBIMINAL   LAW   OF   INSANITY. 

murder  is  disproved,  and  the  prisoner  must  be  acquitted ; 
but,  if  he  would  have  had  no  right  to  break  the  supposed 
jar,  he  might  be  convicted  of  an  unlawful  and  malicious 
wounding.  Wrongfully  to  break  a  jar  is  a  malicious 
act;  and  if  a  man  wounds  another  in  so  doing,  he  wounds 
him  unlawfully  and  maliciously.  In  other  words,  the 
delusion  must,  for  the  purposes  of  the  trial,  be  taken  to 
be  true."  *  This  is  virtually  saying  to  the  insane  man  : 
"  You  are  not  to  blame  for  mistaking  a  man's  head  for 
an  earthen  jar.  Such  was  the  force  of  your  disease, 
you  could  not  help  it;  but  it  ought  to  have  been  as 
clear  to  you  as  to  everybody  else,  that  you  had  no  right 
to  break  the  jar,  and  therefore  you  can  claim  no  immu- 
nity from  punishment  for  making  such  a  sad  mistake." 
As  if  the  disorder  which  caused  the  mistake  could  not 
possibly,  at  the  same  time,  have  deranged  his  notions  of 
right  and  wrong. 

The  same  inability  to  perceive  the  radical  difference 
between  the  operations  of  the  sane  and  those  of  the 
insane  mind,  has  led  to  other  conclusions  equally  un- 
founded. One  of  them  is,  that  madmen  must  be  pun- 
ished, in  order  to  deter  other  madmen  from  doing 
wrong.  As  if  every  madman  regarded  himself  as 
insane,  and,  at  the  same  time,  were  capable  of  learning 
a  lesson  of  caution  from  the  fate  of  other  insane  persons. 
As  if  most  of  them  do  not  regard  their  own  acts,  how- 
ever injurious  and  wrong,  as  perfectly  right  and  deserv- 
ing of  commendation  rather  than  punishment;  or,  if 
technically  wrong,  as  conducing  to  proper  and  desirable 
ends.  In  the  whole  range  of  fallacies  respecting  the 
effect  of  insanity  on  legal  responsibility,  not  one  is  so 
destitute  of  foundation  as  the  idea  that  the  punishment 

1  General  View  of  the  Criminal  Law  of  England,  p.  92. 


THE    CRIMINAL   LAW   OF    INSANITY.  207 

of  the  insane  will  have  the  slightest  effect  on  the  con- 
duct of  others  who  are  insane. 

In  the  trials  of  criminal  cases  in  England,  where 
insanity  was  pleaded  in  defence,  there  was  always 
substituted  for  the  real  question  at  issue  some  meta- 
physical dogma  utterly  irrelevant  to  the  guilt  or  inno- 
cence of  the  prisoner.  Did  he  know  the  act  was  illegal? 
Did  he  know  the  act  was  wrong,  contrary  to  the  laws 
of  God  and  man?  Did  he  manifest  contrivance  in  com- 
mitting the  act  ?  Was  he  led  to  it  by  the  ordinary  in- 
ducements to  crime  ?  Such  are  the  questions  on  which 
responsibility  has  been  made  to  depend,  instead  of  the 
single  and  only  essential  question,  whether  the  act  was, 
or  was  not,  the  offspring  of  disease. 

The  first  approach  to  a  sound  and  rational  theory 
of  legal  responsibility  in  the  case  of  the  insane  was 
made  in  the  trial  of  Hadfield,  where  his  counsel,  Mr. 
Erskine,  declared  that  the  only  question  for  the  jury  to 
determine  was,  whether  the  act  did,  or  did  not,  spring 
from  delusion.  Sound  as  the  principle  is,  it  was  not 
immediately  appreciated ;  for  in  the  next  notable  trial, 
a  dozen  years  afterwards,  that  of  Bellingham,  the  cus- 
tomary tests  were  offered,  and  not  a  word  was  said 
about  delusion.  But  it  made  its  appearance  occasion- 
ally in  the  courts,  until  on  the  occasion  of  the  trial  of 
McNaughton,  some  thirty  years  ago,  it  was  authorita- 
tively declared  to  be  the  law  of  the  land,  that  delusion 
does  not  necessarily  annul  responsibility,  even  whenThe 
criminal  act  is  its  direct  offspring.  Since  that  time, 
trials  of  this  kind  have  been  more  frequent  than  ever 
before,  all  over  Christendom ;  and  though  in  many  of 
them  were  exhibited  a  commendable  knowledge  of  insan- 
ity, and  a  great  advance,  in  fact,  beyond  the  notions  that 
once  prevailed,  no  sound,  settled  principle  of  responsi- 


208  THE    CRIMINAL   LAW   OF   INSANITY. 

bility  has  yet  been  generally  recognized.  Every  case, 
whatever  the  issue,  has  given  rise  to  public  complaints, 
and  excited  some  bitterness  of  feeling. 

In  this  country  the  practice  of  the  courts  has  followed 
pretty  closely  that  of  England,  and  there  was  a  sufficient 
reason  why  it  could  not  have  been  better.  In  the  entire 
absence  of  institutions  for  the  cure  and  custody  of  the 
insane,  no  opportunity  was  afforded  for  seeing  on  a  large 
scale  the  less  as  well  as  the  more  demonstrative  forms 
of  the  disease.  Consequently,  the  prevalent  notions  of 
insanity  were  associated  with  the  sight  of  those  wretched 
creatures  whose  violence  required  the  closest  confine- 
ment in  the  jails  or  poorhouses,  under  circumstances 
that  deprived  them  of  almost  every  attribute  of  human- 
ity. Those  subjects  of  the  disease  who  were  still 
allowed  to  mingle  with  their  fellow-men  were  supposed 
to  be  not  insane  in  the  strict  signification  of  the  term, 
but  merely  strange,  singular,  or  queer,  without  being 
deprived  of  all  power  of  self-control,  of  all  notions  of 
right  and  wrong,  and  of  the  nature  and  consequences  of 
crime,  —  certainly  not  to  that  degree  which  rendered 
them  irresponsible  for  their  acts.  In  the  early  settle- 
ment of  this  country,  they  were  generally  regarded  as 
the  willing  subjects  of  Satan.  Governor  Winthrop,  in 
his  History  of  New  England,  mentions  the  case  of 
Dorothy  Talbye,  who  was  executed  for  killing  her  child. 
It  needs  no  great  knowledge  of  the  disease  to  see  that 
this  poor  woman  was  insane ;  but  the  worthy  Governor 
speaks  of  her  as  "  so  possessed  with  Satan,  that  he  per- 
suaded her  (by  his  delusions  which  she  listened  to  as 
revelations  from  God)  to  break  the  neck  of  her  own 
child,  that  she  might  free  it  from  future  misery."  The 
idea  of  insanity  seems  not  to  have  entered  his  head. 
And  yet  Governor  Winthrop  well  represented  the  intelli- 


THE    CRIMINAL   LAW    OF    INSANITY.  209 

gence  and  culture  of  his  time.  During  the  next  hun- 
dred and  fifty  years,  our  forefathers  scarcely  enlarged 
their  knowledge  of  mental  disease,  except  to  discard,  in 
some  measure,  the  notion  of  Satanic  influence.  In  1785, 
one  Goss  was  executed  in  Connecticut  for  killing  his 
wife.  He  believed  she  was  a  witch,  and  that  he  was 
haunted  by  witches  and  wizards.  He  called  himself 
the  second  Lamb  of  God ;  said  he  was  the  brother  of 
Jesus  Christ,  and  sometimes  said  he  was  the  child  born 
of  the  woman  mentioned  in  the  Revelation  of  St.  John, 
before  whom  the  dragon  stood  ready  to  devour  the  child. 
He  declared  the  sheriff  could  not  hang  him ;  that  his 
heavenly  Father  would  interpose,  if  the  attempt  were 
made,  and  liberate  him.  Thirty  thousand  males  above 
fifteen  years  old,  he  said,  would  be  instantly  killed  by  the 
shock. 

Here  too,  as  in  England,  the  progress  of  improvement 
has  been  slow  and  vacillating  ;  but,  on  the  whole,  our 
record  is  better  than  hers.  We  can  call  to  mind  only 
three  cases  of  insane  persons  executed  during  the  last 
thirty  or  forty  years, —  Prescott,  in  New  Hampshire, 
1834  ;  Baker,  in  Kentucky,  1845  ;  and  Maude,  in  New  Jer- 
sey, 1860.  The  cases  of  Rogers  in  Massachusetts,  and 
of  Freeman  and  Thurston  in  New  York,  gave  rise  to  very 
full  discussions,  both  in  court  and  out,  respecting  the 
effect  of  insanity  on  the  mental  operations  and  its  re- 
lations to  the  law,  which  left  a  marked  impression  on  the 
criminal  jurisprudence  of  the  country.  In  the  cases 
which  elicited  the  following  notices  were  displayed 
either  some  curious  traits  of  insanity,  or  some  remark- 
able administration  of  the  law,  or  some  signal  develop- 
ment of  public  sentiment ;  and  therefore  they  are  well 
worthy  the  attention  of  the  thoughtful  inquirer. 


14 


TRIAL  OF  ROGERS. 


[No  criminal  trial  in  this  country,  in  which  insanity  was  pleaded  in 
defence,  has  become  more  widely  known  and  been  oftener  cited  than 
that  of  Abner  Rogers.  Still,  there  was  nothing  extraordinary  in  the 
incidents  of  the  case.  The  insanity  of  the  man  was  quite  demonstra- 
tive, and  entirely  free  from  those  questionable  features  that  some- 
times give  rise  to  serious  doubts.  Nevertheless,  the  character  of  the 
prisoner,  who  belonged  to  that  class  of  social  Pariahs  which  seem 
destined  by  their  blood  and  breeding  for  a  life  of  vice  and  crime,  the 
eminent  virtues  and  services  of  the  deceased,  and  the  strongly  ex- 
pressed opinion  of  the  surgeon  of  the  prison,  who  stood  high  in  his 
profession,  that  the  apparent  mental  disorder  was  simulated,  raised  a 
very  general  prejudice  against  the  plea  of  insanity.  The  ability  of 
counsel  and  the  intelligence  of  the  court  and  jury,  however,  did  not 
suffer  it  to  prevail. 

To  the  medical  jurist  this  trial  derives  its  interest  chiefly  from  the 
attempt  of  Chief  Justice  Shaw  to  correct  what  seemed  to  him  some 
defects  in  the  criminal  law  of  insanity.  He  enters  into  no  elaborate 
examination  of  these  defects.  He  presents  no  cases  in  point.  We 
only  know  that  the  law,  as  he  found  it,  seemed  to  him  inadequate  to 
afford  protection  to  a  class  of  persons  who  are  clearly  entitled  to  it. 
The  precise  object  he  had  in  view  in  his  manner  of  stating  the  law  is 
not  very  apparent.  He  was  convinced,  probably,  that  Rogers  was  in- 
sane, but  was  doubtful  as  to  his  acquittal  under  the  existing  rule.  We 
are  left  in  doubt  whether  he  was  seeking  for  some  general  statement 
that  would  admit  of  universal  application,  or  for  something  that  would 
be  sure  to  cover  only  the  case  before  him.  It  is  evident,  from  the 
manner  in  which  he  handles  the  subject,  that  he  finds  himself  on 
uncertain  ground,  groping  about  for  something  sure  and  stable  which 
he  may  lay  hold  upon.     He  hesitates  and  vacillates,  returns  again 


TRIAL   OF   ROGERS.  211 

and  again  to  qualify  what  he  has  said,  or  to  add  some  condition  for 
the  purpose  of  enlarging  or  restricting  the  range  of  its  application. 
As  might  be  supposed,  his  ideas  lack  precision  and  lucid  arrangement, 
and  the  reader  is  not  always  sure  of  his  exact  meaning.  ^ 

"The  person  tempted,"  he  says,  "must  have  memory  and  intelli- 
gence, to  know  that  the  act  he  is  about  to  commit  is  wrong,  to  remem- 
ber and  understand  that,  if  he  commits  the  act,  he  will  be  subject  to 
the  punishment ;  and  reason  and  will,  to  enable  him  to  compare  and 
choose  between  the  supposed  advantage  or  gratification  to  be  ob- 
tained by  the  criminal  act,  and  the  immunity  from  punishment  which 
he  will  secure  by  abstaining  from  it."  These  ideas  he  repeats  in  the 
next  following  sentence,  with  some  unessential  change  of  language. 
On  the  next  page,  as  if  suspecting  that  there  might  be  conditions  of 
irresponsibility  not  fairly  represented  by  these  terms,  he  declares  that 
a  man  is  not  punishable,  "  if  his  reason  and  mental  powers  are  either 
so  deficient  that  he  has  no  will,  no  conscience  or  controlling  mental 
power;  or,  if  through  the  overwhelming  violence  of  mental  disease  his 
intellectual  power  is  lor  the  time  obliterated,  he  is  not  a  responsible 
moral  agent,  and  is  not  punishable  for  criminal  acts."  Then,  as  if 
apprehensive  that  these  tests  may  not  cover  "cases  of  partial  insan- 
ity, where  the  mind  may  be  clouded  and  weakened,  but  not  incapable 
of  remembering,  reasoning,  and  judging,  or  so  perverted  by  insane 
delusions  as  to  act  under  false  impressions  and  influences,"  he  lays 
down  the  rule  of  law,  as  he  understands  is  ;  but  it  is  impossible  to  see 
how  it  differs  materially  from  that  which  he  first  stated.  The  phrase- 
ology is  slightly  changed,  and  it  is  added  that  the  person  must  be  able 
"  to  recollect  the  relation  in  which  he  stands  to  others."  All  this, 
excepting  the  last  named  condition,  is  repeated  in  the  next  sentence. 
This  is  shortly  afterwards  followed  by  a  repetition,  more  than  once, 
of  the  test  furnished  by  the  fact  of  the  prisoner's  being  overwhelmed 
by  the  force  of  disease,  and  driven  by  an  irresistible  and  uncontrol- 
lable impulse. 

The  course  of  reflection  pursued  by  the  Chief  Justice  is  a  matter 
of  conjecture,  but  he  has  furnished  us  with  a  clew  sufficient  to  indi- 
cate it  with  tolerable  correctness.  He  finds,  at  the  start,  among  the 
tests  of  responsibility  sanctioned  by  authority,  that  of  knowing  the 
act  to  be  contrary  to  law.  This  he  is  obliged  to  discard  because  it 
conflicts  with  the  ancient  maxim,  Ignorantia  legis  neminem  excusat. 
The  other  tests  usually  associated  with  it  he  adopts  ;  and  accordingly 
he  tells  the  jury  that  insanity  is  a  sufficient  excuse,  if  the  prisoner  did 
not  know  right  from  wrong. in  regard  to  the  particular  act,  and  could  not 


212  .  TRIAL   OF   ROGERS. 

understand  that  he  would  deserve  punishment  by  doing  it.  He  is  not 
aware  of  what  any  attendant  in  a  hospital  would  have  told  him  ;  viz., 
that  many  of  the  insane  do  things,  every  day,  which  they  know  and 
admit  to  be  wrong  and  deserving  of  punishment.  He  might  have 
learned  the  same  thing  from  the  case  of  Hadfield,  who  admitted  that 
it  was  wrong  and  unlawful  to  kill  the  king,  and  deserving  of  punish- 
ment. He  had  learned,  however,  that  insane  persons  are  sometimes 
blindly  and  automatically  urged  to  criminal  acts  by  "  the  overwhelm- 
ing violence  of  disease,"  so  that  the  deed  is  "the  involuntary  act  of 
the  body  without  the  concurrence*of  a  mind  directing  it,1'  and  he  might 
have  suspected  that  the  case  before  him  was  one  of  that  description. 
It  is  a  little  surprising  that  one  so  accustomed  to  the  incisive  logic  of 
the  law  did  not  perceive  that  this  condition  of  irresponsibility  is  em- 
braced in  the  other ;  for  a  person  who  is  impelled  by  the  overwhelm- 
ing violence  of  disease,  meaning  thereby  the  blind  fury  of  active 
mania,  can  scarcely  be  said  to  know  right  from  wrong,  or  to  have  any 
fear  of  punishment.  In  any  case,  the  plea  of  irresponsibility  must  rest 
on  the  fact  that  the  person  was  under  stress  of  disease,  the  difference 
in  different  cases  being  merely  one  of  degree.  The  insane  man  who 
commits  a  criminal  act,  perfectly  conscious  that  it  is  wrong  and  pun- 
ishable, is,  most  certainly,  overborne  by  the  force  of  disease. 

Again,  it  appeared  in  evidence,  that  the  prisoner  entertained  de- 
lusions, and  it  seems  to  have  occurred  to  the  Chief  Justice  that  they 
ought  to  furnish  the  sought  for  test  of  irresponsibility.  Rogers's 
special  delusion  was,  that  the  warden  intended  to  shut  him  up  and 
then  take  his  life.  Believing  thus,  he  would  have  felt  justified  in 
taking  the  warden's  life,  as  an  act  of  self-defence ;  and  this  he  did, 
perfectly  conscious,  all  the  time,  of  what  he  was  doing,  and  never  re- 
gretting it.  But  it  is  not  thus  that  the  Chief  Justice  puts  it  to  the 
jury.  His  question  is,  whether  the  prisoner,  under  the  influence  of 
the  delusion,  did  not  experience  an  "outbreak11  that  "must  for  a 
time  have  overborne  memory  and  reason,  and  become  an  uncon- 
trollable impulse.11  He  thus  confounds  two  mental  conditions  as 
different  as  possible.  The  man  who,  prompted  by  a  delusion,  kills 
another,  acts  from  a  motive,  baseless,  no  doubt,  but  still  to  him  a 
sufficient  motive.  The  man  who,  in  a  fit  of  homicidal  mania,  com- 
mits murder,  is  urged  by  an  irresistible  impulse,  and  is  afterwards 
surprised  and  grieved  by  what  he  has  done.  It  is  a  little  surprising 
that  the  Chief  Justice,  abandoning  all  other  tests,  had  not  been 
content  with  giving  to  the  jury  that  alone  —  delusion  —  which  was  so 
successfully  and  satisfactorily  pressed  by  Erskine  in  the  Hadfield  case. 


TRIAL    OF   ROGERS.  213 

It  can  hardly  be  supposed  that  he  was  deterred  from  it  by  the  gloss 
put  upon  it  by  the  English  judges  on  the  occasion  of  the  McXaughton 
case,  which  occurred  just  before,  for  it  does  not  appear  that  their 
opinion  had  come  to  his  knowledge ;  nor  is  it  likely  that  he  rejected 
this  test  because  it  afforded  no  protection  to  the  victims  of  moral 
insanity.  As  it  is,  we  are  left  in  doubt  whether  he  understood  de- 
lusion to  be  a  sufficient  excuse  for  a  criminal  act  committed  under 
its  influence,  unless  accompanied  by  an  outbreak  of  violence. 

The  judge's  instructions  to  the  jury  in  the  Rogers  case  illustrate 
the  utter  futility  of  seeking  for  a  universal  test  of  irresponsibility  in 
any  particular  impairment  of  the  mental  operations.  When  a  watch  or 
an  engine  gives  out,  nobody  supposes  that  it  is  always  the  same  wheel 
or  lever  or  spring  that  is  at  fault.  It  needs  no  special  instruction  to 
convince  us  that  this  result  will  follow  a  derangement  of  any  part  of 
its  complicated  machinery.  The  brain  is  a  machine  of  the  most 
delicate  and  complex  character,  whose  working,  as  indicated  by 
the  mental  manifestations,  will  be  deranged  by  imperfection  or  im- 
pairment in  whatever  part  of  the  structure  it  may  occur.  The  better 
knowledge  of  insanity  which  now  prevails  demands  that  these  tests 
and  definitions  should  be  abandoned,  and  the  teachings  of  science  be 
accepted  as  the  only  proper  rule  of  law. 

One  statement  made  by  the  Chief  Justice,  in  his  charge,  has  a  pe- 
culiar interest  now,  as  indicating  a  near  approach  to  the  position 
which  has  since  been  so  happily  taken.  He  tells  the  jury  that,  if  they 
find  that  the  homicide  was  "  the  result  of  disease,"'  they  are  bound 
to  acquit.  Had  he  discarded  every  other  condition  of  irresponsibility, 
and  planted  himself  firmly  upon  this,  saying  to  the  jury,  "  You  have 
only  to  consider,  first,  whether  the  prisoner  was  laboring  under  a  men- 
tal disease,  and,  secondly,  such  being  admitted,  whether  the  act  in 
question  was  the  offspring  of  that  disease,"  he  would  have  achieved 
the  honor  of  making  a  signal  advance  in  the  criminal  law  of  insanity. 
Thirty  years  after,  this  very  principle  was  declared,  in  State  v.  Pike, 
49  X.  EL,  by  Chief  Justice  Periey  of  Xew  Hampshire,  whereby  "his 
name  will  be  associated  with  the  final  settlement  of  this  important 
branch  of  the  law  as  long  as  our  legal  system  shall  endure."] 

We  are  glad  that  this  trial1  has  been  fully  reported. 
The  very  unsatisfactory  condition  of  the  law  on  the  sub- 

1  Eeport  of  the  Trial  of  Abner  Rogers,  Jr.,  indicted  for  the  murder  of 
Charles  Lincoln,  Jr.,   late  Warden  of  the  Massachusetts  State  Prison ; 


214  TRIAL   OF   ROGERS. 

ject  of  insanity  as  a  defence  of  criminal  acts  is,  perhaps, 
attributable,  in  a  great  measure,  to  the    circumstance 
that,  while  the  principles  which  have  been  laid  down  at 
different  times  were  more  or  less  shaped  by  the  partic- 
ular facts  of  the  case  in  hand,  the  latter  have  been  but 
imperfectly  reported ;    and   thus,  the    principles   being 
divested    of  their   main  support,    their  truth  is  not  at 
once  and  universally  recognized,  their  applicability  to 
practice  is  entirely  misconceived,  and  new  principles  are 
again  laid  down,  supposed  to  be  sounder,  and  to  better 
meet  the   requirements  of  the   disease.     Hence,   cases 
essentially  alike  have  led  to  new  and  even  conflicting 
constructions   of  the   law,  by  judges   who  might  have 
agreed  respecting  the  legal  principles  applicable  to  any 
particular  case  which  they  tried  together.     A  judge  who 
has  heard,  from  the  lips  of  various  witnesses,  numerous 
circumstantial  details  of  the  freaks  and  vagaries  of  the 
prisoner,  and  the  strong  testimony  in  his  favor  of  ex- 
perts, with    whom    he  may  be   personally   acquainted, 
cannot  resist  the  conviction  of  the  prisoner's  insanity  ; 
and  he  feels  bound,  as  a  matter  of  necessity,  to  construe 
the  law  in  such  a  manner  as  to  afford  due  protection ; 
and  yet  such  a  construction  might  not  have  been  thought 
of,  had  only  the  general  features  of  the  case  been  pre- 
sented to  him  in  chambers.     A  rigid  application  of  the 
principles  laid   down  by  the  English    judges,  in  their 
recent  exposition  of  the  law  on  this  subject,  would  have 
consigned  to  the  gibbet  several  prisoners  who  were  pre- 
viously tried  by  some  of  these  very  judges,  and  acquitted 
with  their  approbation.     So  different  is  the  position  of 

before  the  Supreme  Judicial  Court  of  Massachusetts,  holden  at  Boston, 
on  Tuesday,  Jan.  30,  1844.  By  George  T.  Bigelow  and  George  Bemis, 
Esqs.,  Counsel  for  the  Defendant.  Boston  :  Charles  C.  Little  and  James 
Brown,  1844. 


TRIAL   OF   ROGERS.  215 

him  who  speculates  upon  a  case  in  his  study,  from  that 
of  him  who  beholds  it  clothed  in  mortal  form,  breath- 
ing and  moving  before  him. 

Without  going  into  a  detailed  account  of  the  trial, 
we  would  call  attention  to  some  of  its  most  important 
medico-legal  features. 

It  appears  that  in  the  afternoon  of  the  15th  of  June, 
1813,  as  Mr.  Lincoln,  the  warden  of  the  Massachusetts 
state  prison,  was  passing  through  the  shoe-shop,  Abner 
Rogers,  one  of  the  convicts,  seized  a  knife  and  inflicted 
upon  him  several  wounds  of  which  he  instantly  died. 
Rogers  was  tried  for  murder.  The  act  was  admitted, 
and  the  plea  of  insanity  made  in  defence.  The  evidence 
relative  to  the  existence  of  insanity  was  remarkably 
copious,  explicit,  and  satisfactory  ;  and  though  much  of 
it  was  given  by  convicts,  yet  every  material  fact  was 
abundantly  confirmed  by  witnesses  of  unquestioned 
credibility.  In  cases  much  less  clear  than  this,  grand 
juries  have  often  refused  to  find  a  bill ;  and  probably 
nothing  but  the  relation  of  the  parties  to  each  other, 
and  the  state  of  public  feeling,  led  to  a  different  course. 
It  seems  that  the  disease  was  first  manifested  on  Mon- 
day the  12th  of  June,  about  two  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
when  Rogers  was  heard  crying  or  groaning  in  his  cell,  as 
if  in  great  distress,  and  was  found  by  the  watchman  stand- 
ing before  the  grated  door,  with  his  hands  crossed  upon 
his  breast,  and  trembling.  When  reproved  for  making 
so  much  noise,  he  replied  that  u  he  couldn't  help  it, 
that  he  was  going  to  die  ; "  that  he  had  "  heard  Cole 
and  Sam  Robinson  [convicts]  say  that  the  warden  was 
going  to  keep  him  in  solitary  the  rest  of  his  time,  which 
would  kill  him ; ';  that  "  he  should  never  go  out  of  his 
cell  until  he  went  out  feet  first."  Between  this  period 
and  that  of  the  homicide,  scenes  like  this  were  repeated 


216  TRIAL   OF   ROGERS. 

several  times.  He  often  spoke  of  hearing  voices  that 
forewarned  him  of  impending  punishment,  which  con- 
sisted in  heing  shut  up  by  the  warden,  and  having 
the  checkerberry  or  popo  game  played  upon  him ;  com- 
plained of  pain  in  his  head  ;  appeared  to  be  laboring 
under  much  mental  distress ;  would  beg  of  one  and  an- 
other to  intercede  for  him  with  the  warden  ;  disregarded 
his  dress  ;  and,  though  employed  in  the  shop,  was  so  un- 
steady in  his  work  and  irregular  in  his  ways  as  to  annoy 
the  others,  and  induce  those  who  had  charge  of  him  to 
represent  to  the  warden  that  he  was  deprived  of  his 
senses,  and  to  request  that  he  might  be  removed.  The 
most  prominent  features  in  his  disorder  were  the  hallu- 
cinations of  hearing,  which  occurred  chieffy  in  the  night. 
They  were  confined  to  one  or  two  expressions,  and  pro- 
ceeded from  only  two  or  three  individuals.  For  a  few 
days  after  the  homicide  the  mental  manifestations  were 
not  materially  different.  In  conversation,  he  talked  much 
of  the  voices,  and  appeared  to  be  unconscious  of  having 
committed  the  fatal  act  ;  he  had  a  bewildered,  unnatural 
look,  and  ate  his  food  voraciously.  Gradually  he  ad- 
mitted that  he  had  killed  the  warden,  that  the  voices 
were  probably  only  imaginary,  and  that  he  must  be 
necessarily  punished  as  an  example  to  others.  In  the 
course  of  ten  or  twelve  days,  all  manifest  traces  of  his 
delusions  had  disappeared,  and  then  he  declared  that 
when  he  committed  the  murder  he  knew  not  where  he 
was  or  what  he  was  doing. 

In  a  case  like  the  present,  it  may  be  worth  our  while 
to  see  how  the  ingenuity  of  the  prosecuting  officer, 
sinking  under  the  difficulties  of  a  bad  cause,  disposed 
of  the  facts  which,  in  the  opinion  of  the  medical  wit- 
nesses who  had  spent  years  in  the  observation  of  the 
insane,    established    the    reality    of  insanity   beyond  a 


TRIAL   OF   ROGERS.  217 

doubt.  The  only  course  left  for  him  was,  to  show,  if 
possible,  that  these  symptoms  were  feigned,  or  capable 
of  being  explained  without  resorting  to  the  theory  of 
insanity.  The  hallucinations  he  regarded  as  mere 
dreams,  the  effect  of  disturbed  sleep  or  nightmare. 
That  a  person  may  dream  that  he  hears  voices,  and  for 
a  time  believe  them  to  be  real,  is  not  improbable.  But 
we  venture  to  say  that  the  instance  was  never  known 
of  a  person  of  sound  mind  hearing  false  voices,  night 
after  night,  uttering  the  same  expressions,  and  coming 
from  the  same  individuals.  To  confirm  his  view  of  the 
matter,  he  suggested  that  Cole  and  Robinson,  for  the 
sake  of  teasing  Rogers,  might  have  really  told  him  these 
things  during  the  day,  though  the  impression  abroad  is, 
that  the  convicts  have  no  conversation  with  one  another. 
Finally,  as  if  dissatisfied  with  both  these  explanations, 
he  doubts  if  Rogers  heard  any  voices  at  all,  and  attrib- 
utes them,  as  well  as  every  other  sign  of  disease,  to 
simulation.  In  one  word,  he  denies  the  fact  and  calls  for 
proof.  The  only  proof  we  can  ever  have  in  such  a  case 
must  be  drawn  from  the  accompanying  circumstances, 
which  will  always  furnish  sufficient  for  the  purpose.  If 
the  hallucination  is  described  with  an  air  of  sincerity 
and  good  faith,  if  it  be  attended  by  other  symptoms  of 
deranged  mind,  and  by  indications  of  bodily  disease  ;  if, 
in  short,  its  origin,  progress,  and  termination  are  in 
accordance  with  our  ordinary  experience,  then  there 
can  be  no  reasonable  ground  for  doubting  its  reality. 
That  such  proof  existed  in  the  present  case,  we  have 
the  authority  of  the  medical  experts  for  believing.  If 
a  young  man,  thirty  years  old,  many  of  which  had  been 
spent  in  prison,  and  possessing  less  than  an  average 
share  of  intelligence,  could  succeed  in  deceiving  a  per- 
son of  such  eminent  skill  and  ability  as  Dr.  Bell,  who 


218  TRIAL   OF   ROGERS. 

repeatedly  examined  him,  we  may  as  well  conclude,  at 
once,  that  simulation  of  insanity  can  seldom  be  detected. 
The  common  opinion  is,  among  those  who  are  at  all 
qualified  to  form  such  an  opinion,  that,  sufficient  oppor- 
tunity being  given,  simulated  insanity  can  always  be 
detected  by  those  who  have  much  practical  knowledge 
of  the  disease.  Rogers's  insanity  did  not  present  those 
indefinite,  negative  characters  generally  selected  by 
simulators,  but  was  a  form  of  disease  quite  common  in 
hospitals,  and  one  whose  features  are  easily  recognized. 
To  simulate  it  with  the  least  success  requires  a  degree 
of  knowledge  and  a  continuity  of  vigilance  and  self- 
control  possessed  by  few  ;  certainly  not  by  such  men 
as  Rogers.  It  forms  no  part  of  our  present  object  to 
mention  the  particular  grounds  on  which  the  medical 
witnesses  rested  their  belief  in  the  genuineness  of  the 
manifestations.  We  would  take  the  opportunity,  how- 
ever, to  remark  that  the  testimony  of  Dr.  Bell  presents 
one  of  those  happy  instances  of  thorough  and  sagacious 
investigation,  peculiarly  satisfactory  and  gratifying  to 
those  who  best  know  the  difficult  and  delicate  nature  of 
the  duty  he  had  to  perform. 

If  Rogers  were  not  insane,  then,  of  course,  in  killing 
the  warden,  he  must  have  been  actuated  by  motives. 
In  trying  to  convince  the  jury  of  this  fact,  the  district 
attorney  adopted  a  course  which  evidently  shows  that 
he  was  not  himself  convinced.  He  says  that  Rogers 
"  was  a  lazy,  reckless,  and  wicked  person  ;  "  that  "  Mr. 
Braman  was  in  the  habit  of  reporting  him  for  not  doing 
his  work  right;  "  that  "he  was  frequently  punished;" 
that  he  consequently  contracted  a  strong  resentment 
against  Mr.  Lincoln,  uttered  threats,  and  avowed  a  pur- 
pose of  revenge  ;  that  for  some  time  prior  to  the  hom- 
icide he  manifested  his  usual  steadiness  and  self-control ; 


TRIAL   OF   ROGERS.  219 

that  his  manner  of  doing  the  act  was  deliberate  and 
well  managed  :  and  that  subsequently  he  confessed  he 
had  done  wrong  and  expected  to  suffer.  All  these 
points,  except  the  last,  are  the  offspring  of  the  district 
attorney's  own  brain.  B  ram  an  never  reported  Rogers 
for  not  doing  his  work  right,  nor  did  any  one  else.  On 
the  contrary,  all  the  witnesses  on  each  side  who  spoke  at 
all  on  this  point  agreed  in  representing  his  behavior  as 
good,  — "  better  than  the  average  of  convicts;"  and 
the  district  attorney  himself  remarked  that  Braman  and 
Crowninshield  spoke  well  of  his  conduct  and  work.  So 
far  from  having  been  frequently  punished,  it  appears 
that  during  the  six  months  previous  to  the  12th  of  June 
he  had  been  punished  but  once,  and  then  slightly.  The 
district  attorney  said  he  frequently  received  minor  pun- 
ishments which  were  not  recorded ;  but  we  find  no 
evidence  to  that  effect.  That  Rogers  may  have  uttered 
threats  is  not  at  all  unlikely;  for  we  presume  it  is  not 
uncomm'on  for  convicts,  when  unusually  irritated,  to  vent 
their  spleen  in  this  manner,  without  entertaining  any 
serious,  settled  purpose  of  revenge.  In  regard  to  his 
conduct  and  manner  during  the  three  or  four  days  pre- 
vious to  the  homicide,  the  testimony  is  unanimous  in 
representing  them  as  very  unusual.  All  the  witnesses 
testified  that  he  appeared  as  if  in  great  distress,  and 
acted  irregularly  and  strangely.  We  do  not  see  that 
his  manner  of  perpetrating  the  deed  evinced  more 
deliberation  or  contrivance  than  any  one  not  quite  an 
idiot  would  have  displayed.  But,  had  it  been  other- 
wise, who  needs  to  be  told  that  forecast,  caution,  and 
ingenuity  are  not  incompatible  with  the  existence  of 
insanity, — that  they  are  evinced  by  a  large  proportion 
of  the  insane?  Neither  is  his  manner  of  speaking 
of  the    act    any    more  indicative    of  thorough  sanity. 


220  TRIAL   OF   ROGERS. 

When  an  insane  person  first  becomes  conscious  of 
having  committed  some  grievous  wrong,  he  does  not 
sit  down  to  reflect  upon  the  matter,  and  coolly  come  to 
the  conclusion  that  he  was  deprived  of  reason  at  the 
time,  and  consequently  irresponsible  for  his  acts ;  but 
the  sense  of  wrong-doing  and  guilt  is  generally  excited 
at  once,  and  he  speaks  of  the  expected  punishment  as 
something  which  may  be  hard  to  bear,  but  not  unjust 
or  improper.  It  is  not  until  reason  is  quite  reestab- 
lished that  he  views  this  point  in  its  true  light.  Rogers's 
remark,  therefore,  that  "  no  mortal  could  save  him  from 
hanging,  for  it  would  not  do  to  overlook  his  offence," 
is  very  like  what  an  insane  man  would  have  said  on 
first  becoming  conscious  of  such  a  dreadful  act.  At 
any  rate,  he  would  not  have  been  likely  to  say  it,  had 
he  been  simulating.  If  any  doubt  of  Rogers's  insanity 
could  remain  after  the  evidence  given  at  the  trial,  it 
must  have  been  effectually  removed  by  his  subsequent 
history  as  related  by  Dr.  Woodward,  physician  of  the 
lunatic  hospital  to  which  he  was  sent  on  being  ac- 
quitted on  the  ground  of  insanity.1  We  have  no  hesi- 
tation in  saying  that  his  last  performance,  that  of 
bolting  through  a  closed    window  without   attempting 

1  It  appears  from  Dr.  Wood  ward's  account  that,  during  the  four  or  five 
months  he  was  in  the  hospital,  Rogers  had  turns  of  great  restlessness, 
when  lie  complained  of  headache,  vertigo,  and  loss  of  appetite.  At  these 
times  he  was  very  irritable,  and  his  pulse  was  over  a  hundred.  He  also 
looked  anxious  and  distressed,  and  was  apprehensive  of  heing  poisoned.  He 
said  he  saw  evil  spirits  in  his  room  and  smelt  corpses  under  his  bed.  He 
told  an  associate  that  the  food  offered  him  was  a  corpse,  —  he  could  smell 
it.  At  last,  while  at  prayers  in  the  chapel,  one  evening,  he  became  very 
uneasy,  said  the  room  was  full  of  dead  bodies,  and  begged  to  go  out.  His 
request  not  being  heeded,  as  the  service  was  nearly  over,  he  bolted  head 
first  through  the  window,  so  rapidly  that  the  noise  was  mistaken  by  those 
near  him  for  the  report  of  a  pistol  or  gun.  He  fell  fourteen  feet,  and  died 
within  thirty-six  hours. 


TRIAL   OF   ROGERS.  221 

to  raise  it,   is    one   no  man   in   his  senses   could    have 
done. 

The  remarkable  testimony  of  Dr.  Walker,  the  physi- 
cian  of  the  prison,  derives  some  importance  from  his 
official  character,  and  therefore  we  are  constrained  to 
subject  it  to  a  close  scrutiny.  He  testified  that,  in  his 
opinion,  Rogers  was  not  insane  when  he  committed  the 
homicide.  To  some,  this  gentleman's  name  may  be  a 
sufficient  guaranty  for  the  correctness  of  this  or  any 
other  opinion  he  may  offer ;  but  the  medical  jurist  will 
be  satisfied  with  nothing  short  of  the  amplest  proof. 
What,  then,  are  the  grounds  of  this  opinion?  On  the 
morning  of  the  homicide,  Rogers  went  to  the  hospital 
for  medical  relief,  approaching  the  physician  in  a  quiet, 
steady  manner.  "  I  asked  him,"  says  the  doctor,  "  what 
was  the  matter.  He  threw  himself  into  gesticulations 
at  once,  put  his  hands  to  the  side  of  his  head,  and  said  : 
'lam  in  great  distress  here ;  I  am  in  pain  all  over.  I 
am  in  pain  right  through  here,  and  feel  as  if  I  could  not 
govern  my  mind.'  I  said  to  him,  '  I  understand  this. 
If  you  will  do  your  part  towards  meriting  kind  treat- 
ment, you  will  receive  it.'  He  became  collected  imme- 
diately, was  attentive  to  ray  advice,  and  went  quietly 
away."  From  this  interview  alone,  —  for  the  doctor 
never  put  eyes  on  the  prisoner  afterwards  until  he  saw 
him  in  the  court-room,  —  he  was  satisfied  that  Rogers 
was  of  perfectly  sound  mind,  and  came  to  the  hospital 
for  the  purpose  of  deceiving  him.  "  My  reasons  for 
this  opinion  are,  that,  when  he  passed  the  door  of  the 
room  where  I  was,  I  saw  his  countenance,  and  there 
was  nothing  unusual  in  its  expression.  He  approached 
me  at  first  with  his  common  gait,  and  with  his  usual 
calm  appearance  and  collected  manner,  and  without  any 
manifestations  of  distress.     On  making  his  statement  to 


222  TRIAL   OF   ROGERS. 

me,  he  threw  himself  into  the  position  I  have  described. 
He  did  not  feel  the  pain  he  pretended  to  have  in  his 
head :  if  he  had,  he  would  have  walked  more  carefully, 
so  as  not  to  jar  it,  and  his  distress  would  have  shown 
itself  in  his  countenance.  He  made  no  remonstrance 
against  my  advice.  He  said  nothing  about  hearing 
voices."  We  venture  to  say  that  never  was  a  case  of 
suspected  simulation  so  summarily  disposed  of  before. 
Distinguished  medical  jurists  have  thought  that  long 
and  repeated  interviews  with  the  prisoner,  vigilant  ob- 
servation of  his  movements,  the  trial  of  various  tests, 
a  knowledge  of  his  past  history,  and  a  careful  examina- 
tion of  his  physical  condition,  were  all  required,  in  a 
greater  or  less  degree,  to  establish  beyond  a  doubt  the 
true  nature  of  the  case.  They  have  thought  that  no 
investigation  less  thorough  and  patient  than  this  could 
satisfy  the  requirements  of  justice  and  of  their  own  pro- 
fessional reputation.  Dr.  Walker  reached  his  object  by 
a  shorter  —  we  doubt  if  it  will  prove  to  have  been  a 
smoother  —  path.  Mortals  less  happily  endowed  cannot 
but  wonder  at  the  marvellous  sagacity  which,  without 
the  slightest  intimation  from  others  respecting  the  pris- 
oner's designs,  could  discern  at  a  glance  the  signs  of 
simulation,  and  in  five  minutes  or  less  become  convinced 
beyond  the  reach  of  a  doubt.  Not  a  word  did  he  care 
to  know  of  Rogers's  previous  conduct  or  conversation, 
nor  did  he  deem  it  worth  while  to  ascertain  his  present 
thoughts  and  feelings.  The  prisoner  said  he  had  great 
pain  and  distress  all  over ;  but  to  look  at  his  tongue,  to 
examine  his  pulse,  to  feel  of  his  skin,  &c,  did  not  seem 
to  be  among  the  doctor's  means  for  ascertaining  the  ex- 
istence of  physical  disease.  He  looked  at  him  for  the 
space  of  five  minutes,  saw  him  walk,  and  heard  him  say 
he  had  a  pain  in  his  head,  and  could  not  govern  his 


TRIAL   OF   ROGERS.  223 

mind.  That  was  enough.  What  need  of  a  multiplicity 
of  examinations  and  a  long  report? 

We  find  some  difficulty  in  examining  particularly  Dr. 
Walker's  "  reasons  "  for  believing  Rogers  was  not  insane, 
for  they  seem  to  have  but  little  to  do  with  the  question. 
We  are  quite  unable  to  see  how  his  change  of  manner, 
as  noticed  by  the  doctor,  can  be  regarded  as  indicative 
of  simulation.  It  certainly  was  not  inconsistent  with  the 
most  perfect  sincerity;  while,  if  simulating,  he  would,  in 
all  probability,  have  begun  to  act  his  part  the  moment  lie 
came  in  sight  or  hearing  of  his  physician.  His  not  favor- 
ing the  alleged  pain  in  his  head  by  a  more  careful  gait 
might  perhaps  indicate  that  the  pain  was  a  mere  pretence, 
provided  he  were  of  sound  mind,  which  was  the  very 
point  to  be  proved.  Few  insane  men  would  take  any 
such  precaution.  They  would  be  as  likely  to  stand  on 
their  heads,  or  beat  them  against  the  wall,  in  order  to 
relieve  their  distress,  as  to  walk  with  a  slow,  measured 
gait.  His  not  mentioning  the  subject  of  the  voices  is, 
at  best,  but  a  negative  proof  of  simulation,  and  had  as 
little  to  do  with  this  point  as  the  opposite  fact  would 
have  had.  Had  he  been  simulating,  he  would  probably 
have  spoken  of  the  voices;  but  regarding  them  as  reali- 
ties, and  not  the  offspring  of  disease,  why  should  he 
have  spoken  of  them  ?  Dr.  Walker  could  not  prevent 
Cole  and  Robinson  from  addressing  him.  Indeed,  it  was 
not  the  voices  which  he  considered  a  grievance  :  it  was 
the  designs  of  the  warden  and  others,  revealed  to  him 
by  the  voices,  of  which  he  complained  ;  and  it  was  that 
feeling  of  distress  in  the  head,  so  common  in  the 
initiatory  stage  of  mania,  that  he  sought  the  aid  of  the 
doctor  to  remove. 

We  observe  that  in  this  trial  the  utmost  freedom  was 
allowed  to  counsel,  in  quoting  from  medical  books  on  the 


224  TRIAL   OF    ROGERS. 

subject  of  insanity.  Page  after  page,  from  French,  Eng- 
lish and  American  authors,  was  read  to  the  jury,  with- 
out the  slightest  check  from  the  court,  except  the  re- 
mark that,  at  some  future  time  perhaps,  the  practice 
might  be  subjected  to  some  regulations.  In  Maine  it 
has  been  expressly  decided,  contrary  to  the  custom  in 
every  other  State,  that  in  criminal  cases  medical  books 
cannot  be  read  to  the  jury  ;  and  in  civil  cases  only  by 
consent  of  parties.  The  principal  reasons  assigned  for 
this  rule  of  the  Maine  court  are,  first,  that  in  receiving 
books  as  evidence  —  in  which  character  they  really  ap- 
pear, in  whatever  shape  they  may  be  introduced  —  we 
are  debarred  of  that  invaluable  means  of  eliciting  truth, 
cross-examination  ;  and,  secondly,  that  books  without  the 
least  authority  among  scientific  men  may  be  represented 
to  be  worthy  of  the  utmost  confidence  of  the  jury. 
These  reasons  are  not  without  some  weight,  but  they 
seem  to  be  more  than  balanced  by  others ;  and  thus  we 
are  reduced  to  the  alternative  of  choosing  the  least  of 
the  two  evils.  If  the  practice  in  question  is  an  anomaly 
in  judicial  procedure,  the  idea  of  submitting  the  fact  of 
the  existence  of  insanity  in  a  given  case  to  the  decision 
of  twelve  men,  not  one  of  whom,  perhaps,  ever  saw  a 
case  in  his  life,  or  ever  made  the  disease  a  matter  of 
stud)',  is  no  less  an  anomaly  in  the  common  sense  and 
common  practice  of  mankind.  Men  charged  with  such 
a  duty  would  seem  to  have  a  claim  to  all  the  light  that 
can  be  furnished  them.  If  they  are  to  decide  profes- 
sional questions,  let  them  have  access  to  the  fountains  of 
professional  knowledge,  —  to  the  Marcs  and  Esquirols 
who  have  spent  their  lives  in  acquiring  it.  Their  exten- 
sive means  of  observation  may  have  given  them  the  op- 
portunity to  become  acquainted  with  facts,  unknown  to 
any  witness  that  can  be  summoned,  but  which  are  essen- 


TEIAL   OF   ROGERS.  225 

tial  to  the  correct  adjudication  of  the  case  in  hand.  True, 
a  book  cannot  be  cross-examined  like  a  witness,  and  there 
is  not  equal  reason  why  it  should.  Scientific  works  pre- 
sent us  the  results  of  their  authors'  observations,  with- 
out reference  to  any  particular  purpose  for  which  they 
may  be  used;  and,  if  their  ability  and  good  faith  are 
acknowledged  by  those  most  competent  to  judge,  it  would 
seem  as  if  there  could  be  nothing  gained  by  cross-ex- 
amining in  regard  to  any  point  they  may  have  treated. 
When  Esquirol  says  that  one  quarter  of  the  insane  have 
hallucinations ;  and  Marc,  that  a  majority  are  uncon- 
scious, when  they  recover,  of  any  thing  that  occurred 
during  the  violent  stage  of  their  disorder,  does  any- 
body believe  that  a  cross-examination  of  these  writers 
would  show  that  the  above  proportions  are  incorrectly 
stated?  Unquestionably,  juries  may  not  always  be  able 
to  satisfy  themselves  exactly  what  degree  of  confidence 
this  or  that  writer  is  entitled  to ;  but  they  labor  under 
the  same  difficulty  in  regard  to  witnesses.  We  have 
known  the  opinions  of  the  shallow  and  conceited  pre- 
tender to  science  avail  as  much  with  the  jury  as  those 
of  the  most  accomplished  expert.  It  would  seem  as  if 
it  came  within  the  province  of  the  court  to  instruct  the 
jury  in  regard  to  the  relative  authority  of  different 
books  that  may  have  been  read,  as  well  as  the  compara- 
tive credibility  of  different  witnesses.  Considering  how 
often  the  subject  of  insanity  comes  before  our  courts,  is 
it  unreasonable  to  expect  that  it  should  be  embraced 
among  their  studies,  so  far  at  least  as  to  make  them 
acquainted  with  the  degree  of  authority  respectively 
possessed  by  the  leading  writers  ?  Shall  a  judge  com- 
mend to  a  jury  the  conclusions  of  Lord  Hale  regarding 
insanity  two  hundred  years  ago,  while  utterly  ignoring 

15 


226  TEIAL   OF   ROGERS. 

the  works  of  men  of  our  own  time,  who  have  spent  years 
in  observing  its  phenomena?1 

In  charging  the  jury,  the  court  adopted  no  particular, 
concise  principle  relative  to  legal  responsibility,  but 
used  a  multiplicity  of  expressions  variously  modified,  to 
designate  that  condition  of  mind  which  absolves  from 
the  legal  consequences  of  crime.  This  fact  might  seem 
to  indicate  some  dissatisfaction  either  with  the  prin- 
ciples or  phraseology  of  previous  decisions.  Its  fre- 
quent recurrence  to  this  point,  and  each  time  with  some 
modification  of  language,  may  have  been,  perhaps,  only 
the  result  of  a  very  proper  anxiety  to  lay  down  no  prin- 
ciple which  would  either  fail  to  protect  the  victim  of 
disease  or  furnish  immunity  from  punishment  to  genuine 
guilt.  Collating  the  various  passages  in  which  the  court 
mentions  the  mental  conditions  of  irresponsibility,  and  re- 
jecting all  expletory  and  equivalent  expressions,  we  have 
the  following  as  the  sense  of  the  court  on  this  point : 
viz.,  A  person  is  not  responsible  for  any  criminal  act  he 
may  commit,  if,  by  reason  of  mental  infirmity,  he  is  inca- 
pable of  distinguishing  between  right  and  wrong  in  regard 
to  the  particular  act,  and  of  knowing  that  the  act  itself  will 
subject  him  to  punishment ;  or  has  no  will,  no  conscience, 
nor  controlling  mental  power  ;  or  has  not  sufficient  power 
of  memory  to  recollect  the  relations  in  which  he  stands  to 
others  and  in  which  they  stand  to  him ;  or  has  his  reason, 

1  A  few  years  afterwards,  the  Supreme  Judicial  Court  of  Massachusetts 
made  a  rule,  Commonwealths.  Wilson,  1  Gray,  339,  prohibiting  the  read- 
ing of  books  altogether.  "  Facts  or  opinions,"  says  the  court  ( Chief 
Justice  Shaw),  "on  the  subject  of  insanity,  as  on  any  other  subject, 
cannot  be  laid  before  the  jury  except  by  the  testimony,  under  oath,  of 
persons  skilled  in  such  matters.  Whether  stated  in  the  language  of  the 
court  or  of  the  counsel,  in  a  former  case,  or  cited  from  the  works  of  legal 
or  medical  writers,  they  are  still  statements  of  fact,  and  must  be  proved 
on  oath." 


TRIAL   OF   ROGERS.  227 

conscience,  and  judgment  so  overwhelmed  by  the  violence  of 
the  disease,  as  to  act  from  an  irresistible,  uncontrollable 
impulse. 

We  are  not  sure  that  these  conditions  of  irresponsibil- 
ity would  furnish  protection  to  all  who  might  require  it. 
Rigidly  construed,  they  certainly  would  not.  No  general 
propositions  of  this  kind  not  in  accordance  with  the  phe- 
nomena of  insanity  can  meet  the  requirements  of  the 
case ;  and  the  above,  as  well  as  others  like  them,  we  are 
quite  sure  would  never  have  been  formed  by  one  practi- 
cally acquainted  with  the  insane  mind.  To  such  it  is 
matter  of  daily  observation,  that  many  an  inmate  of  an 
insane  hospital  is  capable  of  distinguishing  between  right 
and  wrong,  knows  well  enough  the  relations  between 
himself  and  most  others,  and  never  acts  "rom  irresistible, 
uncontrollable  impulse,  but  deliberately  and  cautiously, 
with  a  full  consciousness  of  the  consequences.  No  in- 
considerable portion  of  the  insane  know  perfectly  well 
when  they  do  wrong,  and  may  sometimes  be  deterred 
therefrom  by  the  fear  of  punishment  or  deprivation  of 
privileges.  Ask  a  patient  of  this  kind  why  he  did  this  or 
that  wrong  thing,  whether  he  was  driven  thereto  by  an 
irresistible  impulse,  and  he  will  be  likely  to  reply,  "  No. 
I  acted  as  I  did  because  it  gave  me  pleasure.  I  suppose 
the  devil  was  in  me." 

When  will  the  world  recognize  the  truth,  as  well 
established  as  any  in  nature,  that  insanity  not  only  im- 
pairs the  intellectual  or  reasoning  powers,  but  perverts 
the  moral  faculties,  vitiating  the  tastes  and  sentiments, 
and  furnishing  strange  motives  and  impulses.  The  radi- 
cal error  in  all  these  principles  of  responsibility  is  to 
suppose  that  in  any  case  of  insanity  we  can  say  exactly 
how  far  the  operations  of  the  mind  are,  or  are  not, 
affected  by  the  disease.     For  it  is  conceived  to  be  the 


228  TRIAL   OF   ROGERS. 

duty  of  the  jury  to  satisfy  themselves  that  the  prisoner 
is  not  only  insane,  but  so  insane  as  to  be  irresponsible 
for  crime.  Why  then  do  courts  persist  in  attempting  to 
analyze,  define,  and  describe  mental  operations  which 
are  confessedly  beyond  the  reach  of  our  apprehension  ? 
Simply  because  more  than  one  hundred  and  fifty  years 
ago,  a  distinguished  judge,  following  the  lights  of  his 
time,  declared  that  "  partial  insanity  seems  not  to  excuse 
men  in  the  committing  of  any  offence  for  its  matter 
capital.7'1  We  trust,  however,  the  time  is  near  when 
such  authority  on  such  a  subject  will  be  regarded  by 
our  courts  as  entitled  to  but  little  weight  amid  the 
superior  lights  of  our  own  time. 

1  Lord  Hale,  Pleas  of  the  Crown,  30. 


THE   TRIAL    OF    BAKER. 


[The  case  of  Baker  painfully  illustrates  the  mischief  that  may  be 
produced  under  our  legal  system,  by  popular  ignorance  and  passion. 
The  jury  went  to  their  seats  possessed  of  the  idea  that  pervaded  the 
whole  community,  that  an  audacious  attempt  was  to  be  made  to  screen 
a  murderer  from  merited  punishment  by  means  of  that  last  resort  of 
unscrupulous  counsel,  the  plea  of  insanity.  Of  course,  on  minds  thus 
prepared,  the  testimony  of  friends  and  experts,  showing,  unquestion- 
ably, the  presence  of  disease,  had  no  more  weight  than  an  idle  tale. 
As  might  have  been  expected  among  a  people  of  little  culture,  and 
with  ample  leisure  for  discussing  passing  events,  this  case  was,  un- 
doubtedly, a  topic  of  frequent  and  exciting  conversation ;  every 
damaging  circumstance  being  exaggerated,  and  many  invented  by 
their  inflamed  imaginations,  until  the  prisoner  became,  in  the  eyes  of 
every  man,  woman,  and  child,  an  embodiment  of  the  most  fiendish 
iniquity.  The  historian,  the  orator,  the  jurist,  setting  forth  the  ines- 
timable blessings  of  trial  by  jury,  and  the  man  of  the  world  brought 
up  to  believe  in  it  as  the  palladium  of  personal  liberty,  make  little 
account  of  some  of  the  elements  that  enter  into  a  verdict  in  a  case 
that  has  been  discussed  in  every  village  gathering,  and  has  provoked 
from  partisans  on  both  sides  every  species  of  persuasion  and  menace. 
This  is  no  exaggeration.  Who  has  not,  in  a  jury  trial,  seen  the  ties 
of  relationship  sundered,  and  a  man  set  at  variance  against  his  father, 
the  daughter  against  her  mother,  and  the  daughter-in-law  against  the 
mother-in-law? 

Amidst  a  sparse  population,,  it  needs  only  some  effort  to  ascertain 
how  every  individual  feels  in  regard  to  the  pending  case,  and  but 
little  ingenuity  to  adapt  the  proper  arts  of  persuasion  accordingly. 


230  THE   TRIAL   OF   BAKER. 

It  needs  no  prophet  to  predict  the  result  when  one  party  is  weak  and 
the  other  is  strong,  in  position  and  influence.  Not  many  have  the 
courage  to  brave  the  ill-will  of  parties  able  and  ready  to  punish  them 
for  daring  to  perform  their  duty  on  the  witness-stand.  To  incur  the 
hostility  of  a  powerful  family,  in  a  matter  involving  the  deepest  interests 
and  exciting  the  strongest  feelings,  is  a  kind  of  moral  suicide  that  few 
are  disposed  to  commit,  without  some  stronger  inducement  than  the 
simple  love  of  justice.  Consequently,  it  may  happen,  as  it  did  in 
this  case,  that  under  the  forms  and  solemnities  of  a  judicial  proceed- 
ing an  outrage  is  committed  upon  justice  which  one  can  scarcely 
allude  to  but  in  terms  of  the  severest  reprobation.  If  this  were  an 
exceptional  case,  happening  accidentally,  as  it  were,  it  might  not  be 
well,  after  so  long  an  interval,  to  bring  it  again  before  the  public  eye. 
But  inasmuch  as  such  cases  spring  from  certain  principles  of  human 
nature,  and  are  indicative  of  certain  phases  of  our  social  system,  and 
therefore  are  liable  to  be  repeated,  —  as  indeed  once  occurred  to 
the  fullest  extent  under  my  own  observation,  — it  may  be  profitable 
for  reproof  and  correction  that  the  trial  of  Baker  should  be  kept  in 
remembrance.] 

The  document,  whose  title-page1  we  have  quoted 
below,  discloses  one  of  those  revolting  cases  of  judicial 
ignorance  and  barbarity  which  fill  us  with  horror  and 
amazement.  It  is  with  feelings  of  unspeakable  morti- 
fication and  sorrow  that  we  find  it  reserved  for  the 
year  of  our  Lord,  1845,  in  the  State  of  Kentucky,  to 
present  us,  in  the  administration  of  the  law,  with  a 
triumph  of  passion,  revenge,  ignorance,  and  political 
faction,  over  the  pleadings  of  humanity  and  science, 
unparalleled,  we  venture  to  say,  in  the  judicial  history 
of  our  country.     We   shall  not  spend  words   upon  the 

1  Life  and  Trial  of  Dr.  Abner  Baker,  Junior  (a  Monomaniac), 
who  was  executed  October  3d,  1845,  for  the  Alleged  Murder  of  his 
Brother-in-law,  Daniel  Bates ;  including  Letters  and  Petitions  for 
his  Pardon,  and  a  Narrative  of  the  Circumstances  attending  his  Execu- 
tion, &c,  &c.  By  C.  W.  Crozier.  Trial  and  Evidence,  by  A.  R. 
M'Kee.     Louisville,  Ky.,  Prentice  &  Weissinger,  Printers.     1846. 


THE    TRIAL   OF   BAKER.  231 

actors  in  this  affair,  for  such  persons  would  heed  the 
strongest  expressions  of  public  indignation  as  little  as 
the  winds.  People  who  are  addicted  to  such  pungent 
arguments  as  bowie-knives  and  pistols  would  scarcely 
feel  the  paper  bullets  of  the  brain.  As  faithful  jour- 
nalists of  matters  connected  with  insanity,  we  could 
not  overlook  this  case;  while  it  will  give  those  worthy 
people  who  mourn  over  the  prevalence  of  the  plea  of 
insanity  in  defence  of  crime  an  opportunity  to  see  the 
other  side  of  the  matter,  and  derive  what  consolation 
they  can  from  the  sight  of  a  wretched  maniac  proclaim- 
ing his  wild  delusions  from  the  gibbet. 

Dr.  Baker,  the  accused  in  this  case,  was  a  practising 
physician  in  Clay  County,  Kentucky,  of  a  well-known 
and  respectable  family,  and  at  his  decease  about  thirty 
years  of  age.  One  of  the  editors  of  this  publication 
states  that  as  early  as  1838  and  1839  he  manifested 
some  singularities  of  deportment  that  caused  much 
speculation  among  his  friends.  Once  while  attending 
the  medical  lectures  he  suddenly,  and  without  the  least 
provocation,  began  to  abuse  a  fellow-student  for  looking 
at  his  head,  suspecting  him  of  looking  at  a  lock  of  white 
hair,  and  threatening  to  take  his  life  if  he  did  it  again. 
He  then  resided  with  this  editor,  who  also  says, — 
though  neither  of  these  facts  appeared  in  evidence  at 
the  trial,  —  "  That  he  would  frequently  alarm  the  family 
"at  a  late  hour  in  the  night  by  crying  out  that  some  per- 
sons were  in  the  house.  We  would  light  a  candle,  and, 
followed  by  Dr.  Baker,  who  was  armed  with  the  tongs 
or  shovel,  would  examine  every  apartment,  even  to  the 
garret;  and  he  would  after  this  still  insist  that  there 
were  persons  in  the  house,  as  he  heard  them  whisper- 
ing." We  hear  nothing  more  of  his  mental  irregular- 
ities until  within  a  year   of  the   homicide,  when  some 


232  THE   TRIAL   OF   BAKER. 

notions  he  expressed  to  his  father  respecting  Bates's 
treatment  of  his  wife  awakened  in  the  father's  mind  the 
suspicion  which  he  had  previously  entertained,  that  his 
son  was  becoming  deranged.  This,  and  the  following 
facts  respecting  his  mental  condition,  we  find  in  the 
evidence   given    at    the    trial. 

In  May,  1844,  he  married  a  young  girl  of  a  wealthy 
and  respectable  family,  herself  of  an  unblemished  char- 
acter, and  went  to  reside  in  the  family  of  this  James 
Bates,  whose  wife  was  a  sister  of  Baker.  From  this 
time  till  the  day  of  his  execution  he  was  possessed  with 
the  idea  that  his  wife  was  unchaste,  —  a  subject,  indeed, 
of  nymphomania.  On  this  point  he  seems  to  have  spo- 
ken very  freely  and  with  almost  everybody  ;  and  among 
a  multitude  of  persons  whom  he  mentioned  as  having 
criminal  intercourse  with  his  young  wife,  at  one  time 
or  another,  wTere  her  teacher,  her  uncles,  this  brother- 
in-law  Bates,  and  even  negroes.  He  believed  that  she 
commenced  this  infamous  conduct  as  early  as  her  ninth 
or  tenth  year,  and  continued  it  at  every  opportunity 
subsequently.  In  regard  to  some  of  these  persons,  he 
declared  that  they  came  into  his  sleeping-room  at  night, 
and  accomplished  their  purpose  even  in  his  own  pres- 
ence ;  and  that  on  one  occasion,  whilst  visiting  his  father's 
family,  his  own  mother  lent  her  assistance.  He  also 
imagined  that  his  mother  and  sisters  kept  a  house  of  ill- 
fame  ;  that  Bates  treated  his  own  wife  with  great  cru- 
elty, and  had  debauched  her  younger  sister,  and  that 
in  conjunction  with  his  (Baker's)  wife  he  once  at- 
tempted to  poison  him.  He  told  a  witness  that  they 
gave  him  some  toddy,  and,  though  he  took  but  a  sip  of 
it,  yet  "  it  swelled  up  his  head  until  it  felt  as  large  as  a 
bushel ;  and  that,  if  he  had  drank  as  much  as  usual,  it 
would   have  blown  him  to  hell  in  five  minutes."     He 


THE   TRIAL   OF   BAKER.  233 

frequently  expressed  his  belief  that  Bates  was  at  the 
head  of  a  conspiracy  to  kill  him,  and  that  for  this  pur- 
pose he  had  collected  muskets  and  other  weapons  in 
his  house,  and  had  set  his  negroes  to  waylay  him  in 
secluded  places. 

During  the  period  between  his  marriage  and  the  hom- 
icide, he  manifested  various  symptoms  of  bodily  ill- 
health.  His  brother,  also  a  physician,  testified  that 
"  his  bowels  were  costive,  stomach  irritable,  mucous 
membrane  covering  the  mouth  and  fauces  red  and  much 
swollen,"  and  that  he  was  "  watchful  and  restless." 
Another  witness  stated  that  "  his  countenance  had  a 
haggard  expression,"  and  he  "  looked  as  if  just  recov- 
ering from  a  spell  of  sickness."  He  seems  to  have 
neglected  his  business,  and  taken  but  little  interest  in 
any  thing  beyond  the  circle  of  his  delusions.  Finally, 
after  one  attempt,  in  which  he  was  defeated  by  the  vig- 
ilance of  Bates,  he  succeeded  in  shooting  his  victim  on 
the  13th  of  September,  1844.  He  made  no  attempt  to 
escape,  was  quietly  arrested,  tried  by  a  magistrate,  and 
discharged  on  the  ground  of  insanity.  His  brothers 
took  him  home  with  them,  and  endeavored  to  restore 
him  to  health  ;  but,  not  completely  succeeding  in  this 
purpose,  they  concluded,  at  the  end  of  some  three  or 
four  months,  to  send  him  to  Cuba,  for  the  benefit  of 
change  of  air,  scene,  &c.  While  here,  Governor  Owsley 
of  Kentucky  issued  a  proclamation  in  which  Baker 
was  described  as  a  fugitive  from  justice,  and  a  reward 
was  offered  for  his  arrest.  This  immediately  induced 
his  family  to  get  him  home  and  surrender  him  to  the 
authorities  of  the  State. 

His  trial  began  on  the  7th  of  July,  1845,  before  the 
Hon.  Tunstel  Quarles,  judge  of  the  fifteenth  judicial 
district.     Public  feeling  seems  to  have  been  much  ex- 


284  THE   TEIAL   OF   BAKER. 

cited.  The  friends  of  the  deceased  and  of  the  prisoner, 
respectively,  made  unusual  efforts,  the  former  to  obtain 
his  conviction,  and  the  latter  his  acquittal.  Armed 
men  were  observed  in  every  part  of  the  court-room  ; 
and  a  long  array  of  eminent  counsel  appeared  on  each 
side.  A  considerable  number  of  witnesses  were  exam- 
ined, to  whom  the  largest  liberty  was  allowed  in  giving 
their  testimony,  much  of  which  was  mere  hearsay  and 
rumor.  Whether  the  courts  of  Kentucky  ever  pretend 
to  be  governed  by  any  rules  of  evidence  is  what  we  do 
not  know ;  but  in  this  case,  certainly,  there  was  a  com- 
plete defiance  of  all  rules  recognized  in  this  part  of  the 
world,  for  the  witnesses  were  permitted  to  ramble  on 
pretty  much  as  they  pleased.  The  two  following  pas- 
sages, each  of  which  is  a  continuous  extract,  will  give 
the  reader  some  idea  of  what  is  considered  evidence 
in   Kentucky  :  — 

"  Witness  was  at  the  Lunatic  Asylum  in  Lexington,  and 
saw  the  inmates,  and  did  not  then  believe  that  a  man  could 
be  deranged  upon  one  subject  and  not  upon  all.  Witness 
was  told  by  Mrs.  Dr.  Reid,  that  Dr.  Reid  said  that  Dr.  Baker 
was  deranged,  and  had  been  in  that  condition  for  twelve 
months.  Said,  damn  his  derangement.  Witness  had  a  con- 
versation with  Mr.  Woodcock,  the  clerk  of  Clay,  and  attorney 
Einsworth,  and  they  said  that  the  best  ground  of  Abner 
Baker's  defence  was  derangement,  and  witness  said  then  that 
was  a  fashionable  wTay  of  defence.  Witness  has  since  read 
upon  the  subject  a  little,  and  heard  some  conversation,  and 
noAv  has  no  doubt  that  Abner  Baker  is  a  monomaniac."  — 
p.  81. 

"Witness  told  Baker  that  a  neighbor  woman  had  told  his 
(witness's)  wife,  that  Bates  had  said  that  if  he  (Baker)  ever 
came  down  he  would  kill  him."  —  p.  15. 

4 


THE    TEIAL   OF   BAKER.  235 

After  this  specimen,  no  one  can  be  surprised  that  most 
of  the  witnesses,  though  not  medical  men,  were  allowed 
to  express  their  opinion  respecting  Baker's  mental  con- 
dition ;  and  the  manner  in  which  some  of  them  expatiated 
on  this  point  is  certainly  curious,  if  not  very  instruc- 
tive. Two  medical  witnesses  only  were  examined,  one 
for  the  government,  the  other  for  the  prisoner.  The 
former,  Dr.  Reid,  seems  to  have  obtained  some  new  light 
on  the  subject  of  insanity,  which  we  feel  bound  to  notice 
for  the  sake  of  our  professional  brethren,  wTho  might 
not  otherwise  receive  its  benefits.  He  states  that  "  he 
had  not  expressed  the  opinion  that  Dr.  B.  was  insane, 
but  he  has  been  of  the  opinion  that  Dr.  B.  was  laboring 
under  illusions  of  mind  in  regard  to  his  wife."  Again 
he  says,  that  "  a  person  who  can  lay  all  his  plans  for 
carrying  out  any  thing  desired  to  be  accomplished  would 
not  be  laboring  under  insanity."  This  gentleman's 
answers  seemed  to  be  the  mere  echo  of  the  questions 
put  to  him  by  either  side  ;  for  he  finally  admitted  that, 
supposing  the  facts  respecting  Baker's  extraordinary 
notions,  as  we  have  mentioned  them  above,  to  be  true, 
he  was  unquestionably  insane.  Dr.  Richardson,  of  Lex- 
ington, who,  for  many  years,  had  been  a  professor  in  the 
Transylvania  University,  was  called  by  the  other  side ; 
and  though  he  had  never  been  devoted  expressly  to  the 
care  of  the  insane,  yet  he  appears  to  have  seen  some- 
what more  of  such  patients  than  most  practitioners.  He 
had  visited  Baker  in  jail,  and  heard  the  testimony  at  the 
trial,  and  could  have  no  doubt  that  he  was  insane.  His 
notion,  however,  that  the  position  Baker  sat  in  was 
strongly  indicative  of  insanity,  savors  more  of  the  fanci- 
ful than  the  scientific.  But  the  evidence  established 
beyond  a  doubt  the  existence  of  Baker's  delusions,  while 
it  disclosed  not  a  shadow  of  foundation  for  them  in  the 


236  THE   TEIAL   OF   BAKER. 

conduct  of  his  wife  or  of  Bates.  Indeed  there  was  no 
attempt  to  prove  that  their  characters  were  otherwise 
than  irreproachable,  or  that  his  delusions  were  not  as 
baseless  as  the  fabric  of  a  vision. 

All  the  counsel  declined  to  furnish  their  speeches  to 
the  editor,  except  one  who  pleaded  for  the  prisoner,  so 
that  we  do  not  know  on  what  ground  precisely  his  con- 
viction was  urged.  Neither  does  the  charge  of  the  court 
to  the  jury  appear  ;  and  therefore  we  are  left  in  the  dark 
as  to  the  views  of  the  court  on  the  law  of  insanity.  The 
jury  were  out  two  days ;  and  it  is  not  the  least  remark- 
able trait  of  this  remarkable  trial,  that,  "  during  a  great 
part  of  the  time,"  as  the  editor  states,  "  a  large  body  of 
influential  men,  most  of  them  armed,  stood  in  full  view 
of  the  jury."  It  is  not  surprising  that  the  result  of  such 
deliberations  was  the  conviction  of  the  prisoner.  A 
motion  was  made  for  a  new  trial,  but  without  success; 
sentence  was  pronounced  and  a  day  appointed  for  the 
execution.  Thus  ended  another  act  of  this  judicial 
tragedy.     A  sadder  is  to  follow. 

The  friends  of  Baker  now  made  every  effort  to  pro- 
cure his  pardon.  Six  of  the  jury  signed  a  paper  recom- 
mending him  to  mercy,  —  we  say  signed,  though  two  of 
them  made  their  mark,  "  like  honest,  plain-dealing  men," 
—  in  which  they  say  that  Baker  "  was  in  a  state  of  mental 
excitement  and  delusion  respecting  his  wife  and  said 
Bates,  which  may  be  considered  insanity."  One  of  this 
number  also  certifies,  am<5ng  other  things,  that,  "  from 
the  evidence,  they  believed  that  Dr.  Baker  was  deranged 
upon  those  subjects,  and  not  a  fit  subject  for  example  : 
but  from  our  understanding  of  the  law  applied  to 
the  evidence  we  had  to  find  a  verdict  of  guilty.  I  do 
further  certify,"  he  continues,  "  that,  if  the  delusions 
which  were    proved    upon    Baker    had    been    facts,    it 


THE    TRIAL   OF   BAKER.  237 

would  have  been  a  full  and  good  excuse  for  killing  hiin 
(Bates)." 

Another  certificate,  in  which  the  same  sentiments  are 
expressed  in  the  same   words,  was  signed  by  four  other 
jurymen.     Such  a  juxtaposition  of  the  most  latitudina- 
rian  indulgence  to  crime  with  the  most  servile  obedi- 
ence   to    the  letter  of  the  law  is  without  its   like,  we 
apprehend,  in  all  the  annals  of  criminal  jurisprudence. 
Applications  for  his  pardon  were  made  by  hundreds  of 
persons,  comprising  some  of  the  most  respectable  and 
best  known  citizens  in  the  State.     The  leading  medical 
men  in  Kentucky,  among  whom  were  several  professors 
of   the   Transylvania    University,  and    our  friend    Dr. 
Allan,  the  worthy  superintendent  of  the  Kentucky  Luna- 
tic Asylum,  after  examining  the  testimony  given  at  the 
trial,  declared  their  belief  that  he  was  deeply  insane  when 
he  committed  the  homicide.    The  result  of  the  movement 
was  only  to   procure  a  reprieve  of  a  few  weeks,  and  he 
was  finally  executed  on  the  3d  of  October,  1845.    Under 
the  gallows  he  made  a  speech,  rehearsing  his  delusions 
respecting  his    wife  and    Bates,  and    glorying   in    the 
bloody  deed  for  which  he  suffered.     Taking  hold  of  the 
rope,  he  exclaimed,  "  Behold  the  necklace  of  a  whore  I" 
Thus,  under  the  sacred  names  of  justice  and  law,  was  en- 
acted a  fearful  tragedy  which  outraged  both.     A  proper 
pride  of  country  would  have  induced  us  to  bury  in  ob- 
livion, if  possible,  a  case  indicative  of  a  state  of  civili- 
zation more   like  that  of  the  middle  ages  than  of  the 
nineteenth  century.     But  an  imperative  sense  of  duty 
impels  us  to  hold  up  its  atrocities  to  the  public  view,  in 
the  hope  that  such  exposure   will  convey  an  impressive 
and  a   salutary  lesson.     When  a  gross  outrage  is  com- 
mitted on  the   rights   of  humanity,  we  regard  it  as  the 
duty  of  every  honest  man,  when  reasonable  opportunity 


238  THE    TRIAL   OF   BAKER. 

offers,  to  proclaim  his  disapprobation  in  tones  that 
shall  reach  the  wrong-doer,  even  in  his  most  secret 
refuge. 

In  taking  leave  of  this  case,  we  would  express  the 
hope  -that  no  similar  one  will  ever  be  permitted  again  to 
disgrace  our  country  and  the  age. 


CASE   OF    C.  A. 


[The  following  case  presents  one  of  those  forms  of  insanity  which 
are  very  apt  to  be  misunderstood  by  people  not  practically  conversant 
with  the  disease.  The  patient  is  depressed,  certainly,  but  it  is  a  kind 
of  depression  that  may  proceed,  apparently,  from  the  ordinary 
troubles  of  life,  and  indicate  no  pathological  disturbance.  He  is 
regarded  as  low-spirited,  moody,  cross-grained,  and  absorbed  in  his 
own  reflections ;  and,  as  he  is  obstinately  taciturn,  nothing  more  is 
learned  of  his  mental  condition.  This  form  of  disease  begins  with 
simple  depression,  which  gradually  deepens  until  every  ray  of  light 
and  hope  is  extinguished,  and  a  sense  of  intense  and  inexplicable 
wretchedness  excludes  every  other  thought  and  care.  Ordinary  pur- 
suits have  lost  their  interest,  the  sweet  influences  of  life  are  all  un- 
heeded, and  the  time  is  spent  in  reverie  or  restless  movement.  Then 
succeeds  suspicion  of  the  designs  of  those  around  the  patient,  —  mem- 
bers of  his  own  family,  or  even  intimate  friends,  —  and  this  finally 
grows  into  a  settled  conviction  that  plans  and  conspiracies  are  form- 
ing against  his  life  and  peace.  In  most  cases,  probably,  the  persons 
suspected  are  not  at  first  identified  with  any  particular  individual. 
They  are  a  sort  of  abstraction ;  and,  when  asked  who  they  are,  the 
only  reply  is,  "  They  do  or  say  so  and  so."  The  movements  and 
expressions  of  others  are  watched,  scrutinized,  and  misunderstood ; 
and  the  most  innocent  occasions  are  tortured  into  proofs  of  hostility 
and  hate.  The  perceptive  powers  are  morbidly  quickened,  until  they 
give  rise  to  false  impressions.  Sounds  and  sights  the  most  insignifi- 
cant are  thus  distorted  into  some  painful  relation  to  himself,  and 
when  all  is  silent  he  may  hear  mysterious  voices  charging  him  with 
crimes  and  revolting  indecencies.  Thus  far  he  may  give  no  intima- 
tion of  the  thoughts  and  feelings  that  possess  his  mind,  for  he  avoids 


240  CASE    OF   C.    A. 

conversation  and  seeks  solitude.  The  end  of  it  all  is  mania,  demon- 
strative enough  to  satisfy  the  most  incredulous.  But  before  this  takes 
place,  his  delusions,  rendered  for  a  while  unusually  intense,  may  pre- 
cipitate him  upon  some  fearful  act  of  violence.  A  dear  friend  or  an 
utter  stranger  coming  before  him  at  such  a  moment,  he  suddenly,  and 
with  an  irresistible  impulse,  avails  himself  of  any  means  at  hand,  and 
takes  the  life  of  his  fancied  tormentor. 

In  no  form  of  insanity  are  the  mental  processes  more  completely 
beyond  the  government  of  right  reason  than  in  this  ;  and  yet  it  is  a  kind 
of  derangement  not  apt  to  be  recognized  by  the  ordinary  observer. 
He  only  sees  a  person  quiet,  speaking  coherently,  perhaps  rationally, 
when  he  speaks  at  all,  inoffensive,  unsocial ;  low-spirited,  perhaps, 
even  deeply  despondent,  but,  to  all  appearance,  not  crazy.  Hence 
the  difficulty  of  convincing  people  of  the  existence  of  mental 
disease  when  disguised  by  so  much  outward  propriety ;  for  though 
the  looks,  manner,  turn  of  thought,  and  mode  of  expression  are  as 
demonstrative  of  insanity  as  the  raving  of  mania,  yet  these  things 
signify  little  or  nothing  to  the  common  observer.  Had  this  person 
been  tried,  any  number  of  people  might  have  been  brought  to  testify 
that  they  had  known  him  well,  and,  though  rather  strange  in  some  of 
his  ways,  they  never  supposed  he  was  insane.  And  if  he  had  been 
poor  and  friendless,  and  the  public  sentiment  strongly  against  him, 
he,  probably,  would  have  been  convicted. 

Seventeen  years  have  passed  since  this  sad  occurrence,  during 
which  period  A.  has  been  in  the  hospital.  His  condition  during  the 
first  few  months  after  admission  is  described  in  the  following  notice. 
Since  that  was  written,  the  manifestations  of  disease  have  been  steadily 
getting  more  positive  and  numerous.  The  first  of  this  kind  were 
paroxysms  of  fury  that  broke  out  suddenly,  on  some  trivial  occasion, 
in  which  he  raved  at  the  top  of  his  voice,  and  struck  out  wildly  right 
and  left.  They  lasted  but  a  few  minutes,  and  the  next  day  he  ap- 
peared as  usual.  Not  long  after  these  began  he  became  suicidal,  and 
made  several  attempts  upon  his  life.  In  the  course  of  a  year  or  two 
more,  he  assaulted  violently  fellow-patients  on  little  or  no  provoca- 
tion, and  once  came  near  killing  his  attendant.  Thenceforth  he  was 
treated  as  a  dangerous  person,  and  prevented  by  suitable  restraint 
from  doing  harm  to  others.  He  was  visited  by  his  family  from  time 
to  time,  but  he  never  spoke  to  them,  nor  manifested  any  interest  in 
their  visits.  After  the  first  few  years,  he  became  completely  silent, 
uttering  not  a  syllable  to  any  one  from  year's  end  to  year's  end.  For 
the  last  three  or  four  years  he  has  been  peaceful,  and  required  no 


CASE    OF   C.    A.  241 

restraint.     In  fact,  there  is  little  reason  to  doubt  that  he  has  become 
somewhat  demented. 

He  has  probably  entertained  delusions  from  the  beginning,  though 
his  extreme  taciturnity  has  prevented  their  detection.  In  regard  to 
his  moral  condition,  the  indications  are  more  positive.  To  maintain 
an  unbroken  silence  for  a  dozen  years  or  more,  to  express  no  wish 
for  his  liberty,  to  make  no  inquiry  for  family  or  friends,  to  manifest 
neither  joy  nor  sorrow  at  any  event  within  his  knowledge,  all  show 
a  profound  derangement  of  the  moral  sentiments.] 

In  August  last  I  was  requested  by  the  Attorney-Gen- 
eral to  hear  the  evidence  which  was  to  be  presented  to 
the  grand  jury,  touching  a  homicide  committed  by  a 
young  man,  in  a  neighboring  town.  From  this  evidence 
and  my  own  personal  observations,  I  have  compiled  the 
following  history  of  this  interesting  case. 

THE    PARTIES. 

C.  A.  and  V.  A.  were  cousins,  the  sons  of  respectable, 
thriving  farmers  who  had  always  lived  in  the  same 
neighborhood,  and  were,  respectively,  twenty-three  and 
twenty-five  years  old.  They  had  been  very  intimate 
and  fond  of  each  other  from  childhood,  and  had  the 
reputation  of  being  remarkably  correct  and  amiable 
young  men.  They  had  been  at  the  mines  in  California, 
and  while  there  had  lived  together  much  of  the  time. 
V.  came  home  in  the  spring  of  1855;  and  shortly  after 
became  a  merchant's  clerk  in  Boston.  C.  came  home  on 
the  9th  of  June,  1855,  and  resided  in  his  father's 
family. 

INCIDENTS    OF   THE   HOMICIDE. 

On  the  18th  of  August,  V.  came  to  his  uncle's  house 
on  a  friendly  call,  between  nine  and  ten  o'clock  in  the 
morning,  and  after  conversing  with  some  of  the  family 

16 


242  CASE    OF    C.    A. 

went  into  the  corn-crib,  where  he  met  C.  Shortly  after, 
he  was  seen  walking  away  from  the  crib,  and  when  a  few 
rods  from  it  he  was  struck  down,  mortally  wounded,  by 
a  shot  fired  from  the  window  of  the  crib  by  C,  and  died 
about  twelve  hours  afterwards.  This  was  the  second 
time  the  cousins  had  met  since  their  return  from  Cali- 
fornia. 

CONDUCT    OF   THE    PRISONER   ON   THE    OCCASION. 

While  they  were  raising  the  wrounded  man,  C.  came 
out  of  the  crib,  passed  by  them  and  went  towards  the 
house,  but  said  nothing  and  offered  no  assistance.  He 
soon  went  to  his  room  as  usual.  To  the  question  re- 
peatedly put  to  him,  why  he  had  killed  his  cousin,  he 
gave  no  other  reply  than  to  say  that  "  they  had  had  no 
difference. "  The  gun  had  been  kept  in  the  crib,  and  was 
not  carried  there  by  him.  During  the  two'  days  that 
elapsed  between  the  act  and  his  arrest,  he  appeared  as 
usual;  and,  though  strongly  urged  to  fly  by  those  who 
were  not  aware  of  his  real  condition,  he  showed  no  de- 
sire to  go.  When  taken  by  the  officer,  he  made  no  re- 
sistance nor  objection,  but  wept  a  little.  This  was  the 
first  time  he  had  shown  any  emotion.  When  questioned 
by  the  officer,  he  said  that  the  act  was  accidental, — 
that  he  put  on  a  cap  to  try  the  gun,  and  it  accidentally 
went  off.  V.,  during  the  few  hours  that  he  lived,  said 
repeatedly  that  he  could  conceive  no  reason  why  C. 
should  have  shot  him,  that  they  had  always  been  on 
good  terms,  and  that  nothing  passed  between  them  while 
in  the  crib  calculated  to  irritate  him.  He  merely  asked 
C.  if  he  had  been  to  see  the  girls. 


CASE    OF    C.    A.  243 

CONDITION'   OF    C.  BETWEEN    THE    9TH  OF  JUNE  AND    13TH    OF 
AUGUST. 

On  his  return  from  California  in  June,  his  family  and 
others  observed  a  notable  change  in  his  appearance  and 
demeanor.  Though  naturally  cheerful  and  lively,  inter- 
ested in  his  friends  and  fond  of  society,  he  had  now  be- 
come shy  and  taciturn,  avoiding  his  friends,  and  evincing 
no  interest  in  any  person  or  thing.  The  most  of  his  time 
he  spent  in  his  room  alone,  occasionally  going  out  to  fish, 
or  to  work  on  the  farm,  and  once  or  twice  he  visited  a 
neighbor.  He  seldom  came  down  to  see  persons  who 
called  on  him,  and  when,  out  of  doors,  he  observed  any 
one  approaching,  he  would  avoid  him.  He  refused  to 
see  an  old  acquaintance  who  called  three  times,  and  his 
own  relatives  he  treated  in  the  same  manner.  A  married 
sister  and  her  husband,  neither  of  whom  he  had  seen 
since  his  return,  visited  the  family,  and  he  scarcely 
spoke  to  them  during  the  six  days  they  stayed.  In  order 
to  see  him  at  all,  they  were  obliged  to  go  to  his  room. 
All  the  witnesses  who  had  previously  known  him,  as  well 
as  some  who  had  not,  stated  that  they  thought  him,  at 
that  time,  strange  and  singular.  Some  of  them,  in 
fact,  expressed  their  apprehension  that  he  was  losing 
his  reason. 

He  kept  his  bed  much  of  the  time,  and  wras  often 
heard  at  night,  pacing  his  room  ;  had,  at  first,  some 
diarrhoea,  perspired  much,  and  complained  of  headache. 
He  refused  to  take  medicine. 

CONDITION   IN    CALIFORNIA. 

From  the  few  witnesses  who  had  known  him  in  Cali- 
fornia, it  was  impossible  to  gather  a  complete  account  of 
his  mental   condition  while  there.     None  of  them  had 


244  CASE    OF    C.  A. 

much  communication  with  him,  and  they  could  give  only 
a  few  facts  that  incidentally  came  under  their  notice. 
One  witness  stated  that  the  change  in  his  manner  be- 
gan to  be  exhibited  during  the  summer  of  1854.  He 
became  silent,  secluded  himself  from  company,  worked 
irregularly,  and  spent  much  of  his  time  in  bed.  Witness 
accompanied  him  in  the  journey  home  from  California, 
and  represented  him  as  manifesting  no  interest  nor  fore- 
thought in  the  arrangements.  When  they  reached  Sac- 
ramento, he  seemed  bewildered,  and  had  to  be  directed  at 
every  step.  Witness  bought  the  tickets.  On  board  the 
boat  he  kept  aloof  from  everybody,  and  when  spoken  to 
he  got  up  and  moved  off.  While  at  San  Francisco,  he 
showed  no  wish  to  go  out  of  the  house,  and  did  not  call 
upon  an  uncle  living  there.  Here,  too,  the  witness  had 
to  buy  his  ticket,  as  well  as  at  Panama.  Through 
the  whole  journey  he  was  silent  and  indifferent  about 
every  thing.  After  having  arrived  at  New  York,  and  en- 
gaged tneir  passage  in  one  of  the  Fall  River  boats,  they 
proceeded  to  a  clothing-store  to  obtain  such  articles  as 
they  needed.  While  there,  C.  was  suddenly  missing  ; 
and  the  witness,  being  unable  to  find  him,  went  home 
alone.  A  few  days  afterwards,  C.  made  his  appearance 
at  his  father's  house,  and  subsequently  told  the  witness, 
when  inquired  of  about  this  affair,  that  he  had  got  lost- 
Witness  was  told  by  another  man  that  C.  asked  him  if 
he  had  heard  Y.  say  any  thing  about  a  girl,  and,  at  the 
same  time,  said  that  he  (C.)  heard  folks  say,  as  they  went 
by,  that  he  had  fallen  in  love  with  a  girl,  who  died  in 
consequence.  This  same  man  also  stated  to  witness  that 
C.  would  sometimes  talk  to  himself  about  this  affair. 
Another  witness  testified  that  once  he  went  to  his  cabin 
to  spend  an  evening  with  him  and  his  companions. 
C.  soon  went  out  and  stayed  outside   all  the  time  he 


CASE   OF   C.  A.  245 

was  there.  Had  heard  other  people  speak  of  his  pe- 
culiarities. 

On  the  morning  of  the  inquisition  before  the  grand 
jury,  I  visited  the  prisoner  in  the  county  jail.  I  found 
him  a  stout,  strongly  built  young  man,  with  a  ruddy  face, 
and  having,  at  first  glance,  the  aspect  of  high  health.  I 
soon  observed  that  he  averted  his  eye,  and  that  his  coun- 
tenance had  a  dull,  vacant  look.  He  sat  down  before 
me,  bending  forward,  with  his  arms  on  his  knees,  and 
his  eyes  turned  to  the  floor.  I  put  to  him  various  ques- 
tions, beginning  with  ordinary  topics,  and  ending  with 
his  health,  his  relations  to  others,  his  feelings  to  his 
friends  and  relatives,  and  his  motives  in  killing  his 
cousin.  In  no  instance  did  he  reply  without  a  long  de- 
lay, and  when  the  answer  came  it  was  very  brief,  and, 
for  the  most  part,  very  indefinite.  To  many  of  my 
questions  I  got  no  reply  at  all.  When  asked  if  his  friends 
or  anybody  else  had  worried  him  in  any  way,  he  replied 
that  they  had  not.  After  the  question  had  been  re- 
peatedly put  in  different  forms,  he  finally  admitted  that 
they  had  "  talked  about  him."  "  When  they  went  by  my 
cabin  they  said,  '  What  do  you  make  out  of  this  fellow  ?"; 
This  was  all  I  could  get  from  him  on  that  point.  When 
questioned  about  the  homicide,  he  replied  that  it  was 
accidental,  but  offered  no  explanation.  At  the  begin- 
ning of  the  interview  the  pulse  was  110,  but  before  I 
left  him  it  fell  to  100.  He  was  perspiring  very  freely, 
though  the  weather  was  not  hot. 

Having  heard  the  evidence,  I  testified  that,  in  my 
opinion,  the  prisoner  was  insane  when  he  committed  the 
homicidal  act.  The  grand  jury  did  not  indict  him,  and 
the  next  day  his  friends  brought  him  to  the  hospital. 
"When  they  took  him  from  jail,  he  made  no  inquiries  as 
to  where  he  was  going,  expressed  no  wish  of  any  kind, 


246  CASE   OF  C.  A. 

walked  through  the  streets  without  the  least  interest  in 
any  thing  he  saw,  and  came  to  the  hospital  without  a 
single  remark  about  it. 

CONDITION   IN   THE    HOSPITAL. 

Here  his  deportment  has  been  uniformly  correct,  and 
his  manners  gentle  and  gentlemanly,  though  very  quiet 
and  retiring.  He  manifests  the  same  reluctance  to  con- 
verse, and  seldom  speaks,  except  in  reply  to  questions, 
and  then  only  after  a  long  pause.  He  spends  much  of 
his  time  in  reading  books,  which  he  selects  himself  from 
the  library,  but  until  lately  has  shown  no  interest  in 
the  news  of  the  da}r.  At  first  he  kept  himself  aloof 
from  other  patients,  but,  after  a  week  or  two,  he  would 
join  them  in  a  game  of  cards  or  draughts.  He  frequently 
goes  out  to  work  on  the  farm,  but,  of  late,  has  declined 
going,  unless  in  company  with  a  gallery-attendant,  in- 
stead of  a  farm-laborer.  When  out,  he  is  very  diligent 
and  does  his  work  well.  The  Sunday  services,  and  lect- 
ures at  other  times,  he  constantly  attends,  though  he 
declined  at  first.  During  the  first  ten  weeks  he  saw  no 
one  whom  he  had  ever  seen  before,  and  made  no  mention 
whatever  of  his  family  or  friends.  At  the  end  of  that 
period  he  was  visited  by  some  of  the  family,  —  his  father, 
mother,  uncle,  and  aunt.  He  shook  hands  with  them  all, 
but  asked  no  questions,  and  manifested  no  interest  in 
what  was  told  him. 

Twice  only  have  I  conversed  with  him  respecting  his 
mental  experience  and  the  motives  of  his  conduct.  He 
spoke  with  great  reluctance,  pausing  long  before  reply- 
ing to  my  inquiries,  and  declaring,  rather  emphatically, 
that  he  did  not  wish  to  converse  on  the  subject,  as  it  was 
very  painful  to  him.  In  the  first  interview  I  endeavored 
to  ascertain  the  range  which  his  suspicions  had  taken. 


CASE    OF    C.  A.  247 

After  a  tedious  questioning,  I  obtained  nothing  more 
than  the  admission,  without  any  explanations,  that  his 
parents  had  not  treated  him  exactly  right.  At  the 
second  interview,  after  some  inquiries  which  led  to 
nothing,  the  following  questions  and  answers  passed 
between  us.  Having  first  assured  him  that  the  only 
object  I  had  in  view  was  his  own  welfare,  which  I  rep- 
resented as  being  deeply  concerned  in  my  knowing  the 
truth,  I  presented  other  considerations  to  the  same 
effect,  which  need  not  be  stated. 

Q.  —  Was  the  shooting  of  your  cousin  accidental,  as 
you  once  told  me  it  was  ? 

A.  —  It  was  not  accidental. 

Q.  —  Had  you  thought  of  doing  it  previous  to  that 
interview  in  the  corn-crib? 

A.  —  Xo. 

Q. —  Were  there  any  differences  between  you  ;  did 
he  annoy  you  in  any  way  ?  It  is  said  you  lived  happily 
together  in  California. 

A.  —  There  was  something. 

Q.  —When  did  it  occur? 

A.  [after  a  long  pause].  —  Seven  or  eight  years  ago. 

Q.  —  What  was  it  about  ? 

[No  reply;  countenance  flushed;  much  agitated.] 

Q.  —  Was  there  a  young  lady  in  the  case  ? 

A.  —  Yes. 

To  all  further  inquiries  on  this  point,  he  steadily 
refused    to  reply. 

OBSERVATIONS. 

Had  this  case  occurred  in  the  ordinary  manner,  and 
unaccompanied  by  any  homicidal  act,  no  one,  with  a 
professional  knowledge  of  the  subject,  would  have  hesi- 
tated to  regard  it  as  one  of  unquestionable  insanity.    Of 


248  CASE   OF  C.  A. 

all  the  indications  of  this  disease,  he  manifested  the 
strongest,  —  a  striking  change  of  manners,  habits,  con- 
duct, and  appearance,  without  any  sufficient  cause.  When, 
in  connection  with  this  trait,  we  consider  the  loss  of  all 
interest  in  his  friends  and  customary  pursuits,  his  uncon- 
cern respecting  things  which  once  would  have  concerned 
him  deeply,  his  quitting  work  and  lying  in  bed,  though 
without  any  bodily  ailment,  his  taciturnity  and  avoidance 
of  his  friends,  his  dull  and  vacant  look, —  considering- 
all  these,  the  existence  of  the  disease  seems  to  be  beyond 
a  reasonable  doubt.  How  far  this  view  of  the  case  is 
affected  by  the  homicidal  act,  is  a  point  not  quite  so  clear. 
That  an  insane  man  should  commit  such  an  act,  certainly 
is  not  very  strange  ;  but  we  must  be  satisfied  that  the 
circumstances  of  the  act  do  not  militate  against  the  sup- 
position of  insanity.  If  the  prisoner  had  acknowledged 
the  act,  and  given  some  reason  for  it  drawn  from  his  de- 
lusions, it  would  justly  have  been  regarded  as  confirma- 
tory proof  of  the  disease.  On  the  contrary,  he  denied 
at  first  that  the  act  was  intentional.  It  is  not  usual, 
certainly,  for  the  insane  to  deny  their  bloody  deeds. 
Acts  of  petty  mischief  perpetrated  in  their  calmer  mo- 
ments they  will  frequently  ignore,  and  with  some  in- 
genuity, perhaps ;  but,  when  urged  on  to  some  fearful 
deed  by  that  overpowering  sense  of  its  necessity  which 
springs  from  strong  delusion,  they  acknowledge  and  jus- 
tify what  they  have  done.  If  the  prisoner  had  shot  his 
cousin  under  the  belief  that  he  was  one  of  those  who 
had  annoyed  him  in  some  way  or  other,  we  should  have 
expected  that  he  would  instantly  and  openly  declare, 
"  I  killed  him  designedly ,  and  he  richly  deserved  his 
fate.  I  am  satisfied.7'  Supposing,  therefore,  his  subse- 
quent admission  to  be  true,  —  that  the  shooting  was 
really  intentional, —  it  is  a  question  of  much  importance 


CASE    OF   C.  A.  249 

whether  the  first  statement  is  compatible  with  the  ex- 
istence of  insanity.  After  a  careful  consideration  of  all 
the  circumstances  of  the  case,  I  cannot  see  in  this  fact 
a  sufficient  reason  for  doubting  the  correctness  of  my 
opinion  respecting  the  prisoner's  mental  condition.  It 
is  probable  that  he  was  governed  by  a  sudden  mental 
movement,  more  or  less  directly  connected  with  his 
delusions,  for  it  is  obvious  that  the  act  was  not  premedi- 
tated. The  sight  of  his  cousin,  while  his  mind  was  har- 
assed with  suspicions  and  apprehensions,  called  up  some 
old  passages  between  them  which,  probably,  had  never 
raised  an  unkind  feelingin  the  heart  of  either  ;  but  then, 
by  a  confusion  of  ideas  not  uncommon  with  the  insane, 
they  led  him  to  associate  his  cousin  with  those  who  were 
disturbing  his  peace  and  destroying  his  comfort.  The 
means  and  opportunity  concurring  at  that  moment,  he 
obeyed  the  impulse  thus  suddenly  produced,  to  sacrifice 
a  persecutor.  Now7,  it  is  well  known  that  when  an 
impulse  of  this  kind  has  passed  off,  and  the  person  has  be- 
come conscious  of  the  havoc  he  has  committed,  it  some- 
times happens  that  he  is  ashamed  of,  and  frightened  at, 
the  consequences  of  his  conduct,  and,  under  the  influence 
of  those  feelings,  endeavors  to  conceal  it,  and,  perhaps, 
takes  to  flight.  His  mind  was  not  so  far  deranged  — 
after  the  violence  of  the  homicidal  paroxysm  had  sub- 
sided—  as  to  prevent  him  from  seeing  and  appreciating 
the  legal  consequences  of  the  act,  though  even  these 
could  not  arouse  him  from  his  habitual  listlessness,  and 
inspire  him  with  the  requisite  energy  for  avoiding  them. 
He  did,  therefore,  what  was  consistent  with  his  appre- 
hensions and  the  temper  of  his  mind,  —  he  denied  that 
the  act  was  intentional,  and  passively  waited  fur  the  re- 
sult. When,  subsequently,  he  found  there  was  nothing 
to  gain  or  to  lose  by  telling  the  truth,  he  admitted  that 


250  CASE   OF   C.  A. 

the  act  was  intentional,  and  assigned  a  very  inadequate 
motive  for  his  conduct,  —  a  motive  which,  under  the  cir- 
cumstances, is  clearly  indicative  of  insanity. 

It  may  possibly  be  regarded  as  a  suspicious  circum- 
stance, that  his  victim  had  become  obnoxious  to  him,  not 
by  being  associated  with  those  who  were  embittering 
his  existence,  but  by  reason  of  an  old  event  which, 
probably,  had  long  since  ceased  to  excite  any  hard  feel- 
ing whatever.  Usually,  no  doubt,  the  maniac  seeks  for 
the  objects  of  his  vengeance  among  those  whom  he  be- 
lieves to  be  engaged  in  machinations  destructive  of  his 
present  peace.  Actual  occurrences  make  less  impression 
on  his  mind  than  the  images  that  crowd  upon  his  distem- 
pered fancy,  and  a  real  enemy  excites  less  emotion  than 
one  of  his  imaginary  tormentors.  But  neither  obser- 
vation nor  a  knowledge  of  the  laws  of  association  wrill 
warrant  us  in  saying,  that,  in  the  mind  of  the  maniac, 
old  grudges  never  get  mixed  up  with  present  delusions. 
In  his  readiness  to  mistake  the  subjective  for  the  objec- 
tive, he  is  apt  to  overlook  the  single  step  which  separates 
real  wrongs  and  annoyances  from  such  as  have  only  a 
delusive  existence.  We  know  very  well  that,  in  some 
forms  of  insanity,  the  patient  finds  his  grievances  among 
incidents  and  events  that  made  no  impression, apparently, 
at  the  time,  and  had  been  almost  forgotten  by  every  one 
else.  After  the  lapse  of  weeks  or  months,  an  innocent 
remark,  or  look,  or  gesture  is  called  up,  and  ingeniously 
tortured  into  a  damning  proof  of  hate  and  hostility.  We 
may  fairly  suppose,  therefore,  that  in  the  present  case 
an  old  love-passage  suddenly  obtruded  its  rekindled 
heart-burnings  among  the  suspicions  and  jealousies  that 
agitated  his  distracted  mind,  and  thus  prompted  the 
fatal  deed. 

Had  the  case  gone  to  trial,  this  old  affair  would  prob- 


CASE   OF   C.  A.  251 

ably  have  been  presented  as  furnishing  a  rational  motive 
for  the  criminal  act,  and  thus  invalidating  the  plea  of  in- 
sanity as  a  ground  of  defence.  Leaving  out  of  view  all 
the  positive  indications  of  the  disease,  it  would  be  suf- 
ficient to  say,  in  regard  to  this  point, -that  the  subsequent 
intimacy  between  the  parties,  and  the  declarations  of 
the  dying  man,  show  that  the  wound  had  been  healed, 
if  it  had  really  existed.  However  suspicious  this  denial 
of  the  intention  may  seem  to  those  not  much  acquainted 
with  insanity,  it  will  be  regarded  in  a  very  different 
light,  I  think,  by  all  who  have  had  the  opportunity  of 
witnessing,  on  a  large  scale,  the  operations  of  the  insane 
mind.  Difficulties  like  this  are  not  uncommon  in  cases 
which  are  subjected  to  judicial  investigation.  Not  un fre- 
quently the  medical  jurist  is  puzzled  by  some  particular 
incident  or  trait,  apparently  adverse  to  the  general  con- 
clusion which  is  warranted  by  all  the  other  phenomena 
of  the  case.  It  only  shows  how  multiform  is  nature, 
even  in  its  wanderings,  and  how  feeble  are  our  concep- 
tions of  its  infinite  variety. 


CASE  OF  BERNARD  CANGLEY. 


[Since  the  following  paper  was  written,  a  case  of  homicide,  Com- 
monwealth v.  Andrews,  was  tried  in  Massachusetts,  in  which  transi- 
tory mania  was  pleaded  in  defence.  The  plea  gave  rise  to  much 
discussion ;  and,  by  one  or  two  who  engaged  in  it,  and  prob;ibly  by 
others  who  never  published  their  opinions,  this  form  of  insanity  was 
strenuously  denied.  It  was  alleged  that  the  related  cases  were  care- 
lessly observed,  or  were  reported  by  men  of  a  fanciful  turn  of  mind, 
and  that  among  the  thousands  of  patients  in  our  hospitals  for  the 
insane  not  one  of  the  kind  has  ever  been  found.  Of  course,  the 
proof  of  the  occurrence  of  a  form  of  disease  so  sudden  and  evanescent 
must  necessarily  be  wanting. in  that  fulness  and  accuracy  always 
desirable  for  such  a  purpose,  because  the  cases  are  observed,  mostly, 
by  those  only  who  happen  to  be  at  hand, —  persons  not  likely  to  under- 
stand the  true  meaning  of  such  a  manifestation.  What  they  do  report, 
however,  is  more  or  less  significant  to  others  acquainted  with  mental 
diseases,  and  ought  not  to  be  rejected  as  utterly  worthless.  It  may 
be  legitimate  ground  for  a  scientific  conclusion,  and,  for  lack  of  any 
better,  must  be  used  when  the  exigency  admits  of  no  delay  nor  farther 
investigation.  In  the  following  case,  the  evidence  was  incomplete ; 
and  though  consistent,  probable,  and  sati>factory,  so  far  as  it  goes, 
yet  leaving  much  to  be  desired.  Upon  this  evidence,  such  as  it  is,  it 
was  necessary  to  adopt  that  conclusion  which  seemed  least  encum- 
bered with  difficulty.  The  theory  of  transitory  insanity  explains  the 
phenomena  of  the  case  better  than  any  other;  and,  in  adopting  it  for 
this  reason,  we  certainly  violate  no  rule  of  philosophy.  And  this 
position  is  none  the  less  tenable  because  the  law  requires  something 
more,  holding  the  criminal  to  be  of  sound  mind  and  responsible  for 
his  acts,  until  the  contrary  is  rendered,  not  probable,  but  proved. 

I  do  not  see  how  we  can  refuse  to  believe  in  the  existence  of  this 
form  of  mental  disorder,  for  it  is  supported  like  many  other  facts  in 


CASE    OF   BERNARD    C  ANGLE  Y.  253 

physical  science  that  are  generally  accepted.  Cases  enough  have 
been  observed  —  some  sixty  or  seventy,  as  stated  by  Dr.  Jarvis,  who 
has  written  an  elaborate  paper  respecting  it —  to  preclude  the  idea  of 
chance,  accident,  or  mistake,  and  by  men  whose  standing  and  attain- 
ments forbid  our  considering  them  as  incompetent  for  the  purpose. 
There  is  no  force  in  the  objection  that  cases  are  not  found  in  our 
hospitals ;  for,  being  just  Avhat  they  are,  transitory,  suddenly  coming 
and  suddenly  going,  there  is  little  occasion  for  sending  them  to  hos- 
pitals. As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  they  are  sometimes  found  in 
hospitals  for  the  insane. 

Caspar,  a  German  writer  on  medical  jurisprudence,  of  same  note, 
disbelieves  it  to  be  a  distinct  form  of  mental  disease,  because  he  has 
seen  several  cases  of  melancholia  attended  with  a  violent  outbreak, 
where  the  signs  of  any  other  derangement  were  so  faint  that  the  cases 
may  have  been  readily  Aistaken  for  transitory  mania ;  and  so  he 
jumps  at  the  conclusion  that  all  the  reported  cases  only  represented 
other  forms  of  disease  obscurely  manifested.  That  an  observer  not 
much  conversant  with  insanity  might  make  such  a  mistake,  one  can 
readily  conceive ;  but  to  regard  this  as  a  valid  objection  in  the  face  of 
such  observers  as  those  whose  authority  is  invoked,  is,  certainly,  no 
proof  of  superior  penetration.  Caspar  himself  relates  a  case  pre- 
ceded, as  he  admits,  by  no  mental  disturbance,  which  he  designates 
as  a  "sudden  outbreak  of  mental  derangement,1'  and  thus  avoids,  as 
he  supposes,  any  sanction  of  the  doctrine  of  transitory  mania.  The 
difference  will  not  be  very  obvious  to  his  readers,  probably,  if  it  is  to 
himself.] 

Not  less  interesting  to  the  student  of  morbid  psychol- 
ogy, than  the  well-defined,  well-recognized  forms  of  in- 
sanity, are  those  obscure,  anomalous  conditions  of  mind 
which  occasionally  appear,  but  in  regard  to  which  he 
fails  to  obtain  any  light  from  the  standard  books.  Though 
more  numerous,  probably,  than  they  are  generally  sup- 
posed to  be,  yet  they  are  comparatively  so  rare  and  so 
iai perfectly  understood,  that,  for  the  most  part,  after  ex- 
citing a  little  temporary  curiosity,  they  pass  away  and 
are  .forgotten.  And  yet  they  must  ever  constitute  a 
very  important  class  of  mental  disorders,  for  the  reason 
that  their  existence,  however  infrequent,  must  necessa- 


254  CASE   OF   BERNARD    CANGLEY. 

rily  modify  the  conclusions  that  might  be  drawn  from  the 
more  common  forms  of  mental  disease.  In  fact,  no 
physician  needs  to  be  told  that  many  important  steps  in 
the  progress  of  his  science  have  been  made  by  the  care- 
ful and  persistent  observation  of  what,  at  first,  seemed 
to  be  anomalous  or  exceptional  cases.  In  this  way  have 
neuralgia,  pyaemia,  diphtheria,  albuminuria,  and  many 
other  diseases,  obtained  a  local  habitation  and  a  name, 
and  thus  become  easily  recognized  and  intelligently 
treated.  In  the  more  special  department  of  mental 
disease  there  occur  to  us,  as  instances  of  a  similar  kind, 
delirium  tremens,  general  paralysis,  homicidal  mania, 
pyromania,  kleptomania,  and  Bell's  disease.  These  views 
would  furnish  a  justification,  if  any  were  needed,  for 
occupying  a  few  minutes  with  some  account  of  a  case 
lately  reported  in  the  public  prints,  and  presenting  some 
traits  of  peculiar  interest  to  the  medical  jurist. 

In  the  Belfast  (Ireland)  Journal  of  March  4th,  1864, 
is  a  report  of  the  trial  of  Bernard  Cangley  for  the  mur- 
der of  Peter  Reilly.  As  all  the  essential  facts  are  given 
in  the  evidence  of  Reilly's  wife,  they  cannot  be  better 
presented  than  by  quoting  it  entire :  — 

"  I  am  the  wife  of  Peter  Reilly.  He  lived  at  Coolnacola, 
in  this  county.  He  had  eleven  acres  of  a  farm.  He  was 
pretty  well  off.  He  was  in  the  habit  of  lending  money  to 
people  in  the  country.  At  all  times  he  wTas  in  the  habit  of 
keeping  money  in  the  house.  I  was  yesterday  married  a  year 
and  a  half  to  him.  I  never  saw  the  prisoner  since  thirteen 
or  fourteen  years  ago.  He  lived  in  the  same  neighborhood 
with  me.  I  recollect  the  22d  of  January ;  after  dusk  my 
husband  and  myself  were  sitting  by  the  fire.  The  prisoner 
opened  the  door  and  came  in.  A  little  boy  called  James 
Molloy  was  in  the  kitchen  with  my  husband  and  myself.  He 
was  a  servant.     We  three  were  the  only  occupants  of  the 


CASE   OF   BERNARD    CANGLEY.  2oO 

house.  The  clock  was  after  striking  six.  When  the  prisoner 
came  in  he  asked,  'Is  it  here  that  Peter  Reilly  lives?' 
Either  myself  or  my  husband  answered,' Yes :'  after  the  answer 
was  given,  the  prisoner  got  a  seat  and  sat  down  at  the  fire. 
I  lighted  the  candle,  seeing  a  stranger.  When  he  sat  down 
at  the  fire,  my  husband  asked  him,  did  he  come  far  ?  He 
said,  '  A  pretty  good  piece;  do  you  know  me?'  'Plow 
should  I  know  you?'  said  my  husband.  'Do  you  not  know 
Cangley,  that  the  ass  took  the  hand  off?'  said  Cangley. 
When  he  said  this,  my  husband  shook  hands  with  him,  and 
said,  '  You  are  welcome.'  My  husband  told  me  to  get  some 
supper  ready.  I  then  went  into  a  room  beside  the  kitchen ; 
I  signed  at  my  husband  to  follow,  to  know  from  him  what  I 
would  get  ready.  I  got  tea.  We  took  tea  together  in  the 
parlor,  off  the  kitchen.  We  then  came  out  and  sat  down  by 
the  fire  as  before.  Cangley  read  to  us  out  of  a  newspaper. 
I  sent  Cangley  with  Molloy  to  sleep  in  the  apartment  above 
my  sleeping-room.  They  went  to  it  by  a  ladder  out  of  the 
kitchen.  I  told  Molloy  to  go  to  bed  a  few  minutes  after  ten. 
Cangley  went  up  after  Molloy.  Before  Cangley  went  up  to 
bed  he  went  out  of  the  house  for  a  couple  of  minutes,  and 
then  went  to  bed.  During  the  time  we  were  talking  at  the 
fire,  we  were  talking  about  his  mother  and  about  his  family. 
There  was  no  quarrelling:  He  told  us  that  since  he  had  left  us 
he  had  herded  with  a  gentleman  farmer  in  Meath.  He  said 
that  he  was  employed  there  and  used  to  go  to  Smithfield  mar- 
ket with  cattle.  Myself  and  my  husband  remained  up  after  the 
others  went  to  bed,  about  half  an  hour.  I  fell  asleep  after 
twelve  o'clock.  I  think  my  husband  went  to  sleep  at  the 
same  time.  Some  time  after,  I  was  awakened  by  something 
like  a  foot  moving  on  the  loft  over  my  head.  That  was  after 
one  o'clock  ;  nearer  two  than  one.  All  was  over  about  two. 
When  I  heard  the  noise,  I  said,  '  James,  good  boy,  take  care 
you  don't  fall.'  I  thought  it  was  Molloy.  My  husband  was 
not  awake  when  I  said  that.  When  I  spoke,  Cangley 
answered  and  said,  '  It  is  not  James,  Mrs.  Reilly,  it  is  me.' 


256  CASE    OF   BERNARD    CANGLEY. 

From  his  voice,  I  thought  he  was  standing  at  the  room  door. 
The  door  was  at  the  ladder  and  behind  it.     I  asked  what 
it    was   that   he    could   not   sleep.      He   said    that   he    saw 
flashes  of  fire  through   the   window.     There  is  no  window 
in  the  loft.     Any  person  in   the  loft  could  see  the  kitchen 
window.     Any  person  in   bed  could  see  the  light  on   the 
floor,  but   not   the   window.     My  husband  awoke   when  I 
spoke  a  word  or  two.    I  was  in  bed  all  this  time.     The  door 
was  laid  to,  but  not  fastened.     My  husband  said  it  was  the 
moonlight.     It  was  a  nice  moonlight  night.    When  my  hus- 
band said  that,  he  got  out  of  bed.     I  remained  in  bed.     He 
opened  the  room  door  to  go  out  into  the  kitchen.     When  he 
went  out  he  had  nothing  on  him  but  his  shirt.     He  had 
nothing  in  his  hand, —  no  weapon  of  any  kind;  as  for  as  I 
know  he  walked  to  the  street  door.     The  first  thing  that 
next  attracted  my   attention  was  his  shouting,  '  I  am  mur- 
dered.'    I  then  jumped  out  of  bed.     I  had  nothing  on  me 
but  my  night-clothes.     I  saw  Cangley  standing  beside  my 
husband.     [Witness  here  became  much   affected.]     Cangley 
ran  at  me  as  hard  as  he  could.     He  made  a  stab  of  a  knife 
at  me.     He  stabbed  me  in  the  belly.     I  had  no  weapon  in  my 
hand  at  that  time.     When  he  stabbed  me  I  caught  him  by 
the  side  of  the  neck  somewhere.     He  made  three  more  stabs 
at  me.     He  stabbed  me  with  one  in  the  side  of  the  belly. 
He  had  on  his  trousers,  suspenders,  and  shirt.     I  attempted 
to  catch  the  knife,  and  he  pulled  the  knife  through  my  hand. 
Altogether  I  was  stabbed  twice  in  the  belly  and  got  cut  in 
hand  and   arm.     After  my   hand  was  cut,  he  got  the  knife 
and  went  back  from  me.     I  then  took  up  the  hedge-slasher. 
I  made  a  blow  at  him,  but  did  not  hit  him.     I  had  not  this 
weaj)on  before  he  stabbed  me.    He  was  standing  close  at  the 
door,  and  the  ladder  at  the  door  prevented  my  getting  the 
blow  at  him.     He  then  went  out.     1  shut  the  door  after  him. 
I  heard  the  cry  of  my  husband  about  a  minute  after  he  went 
out  into  the  kitchen.     My  husband  was  at  the  back  of  the 
kitchen   door,  standing.     After  Cangley  went  out,  my  hus- 


CASE  OF  BEEXABD  CANGLEY.         1-Ji 

band  came  toward  the  room  door.  I  went  to  light  a  candle, 
but  he  fell  on  the  floor  before  I  lighted  it.  From  the  time 
Cangley  went  out,  it  was  two  minutes  when  my  husband  fell. 
I  went  to  lift  my  husband.  He  could  not  speak.  He  was 
bleeding  so  that  one  could  hear  the  blood  coming  out  like 
out  of  the  pipe  of  a  kettle.  The  little  boy  then  came  down. 
I  sent  him  out  for  the  neighbors.  I  fainted.  "When  I  came 
to  again.  I  found  Pat  Smith  and  the  little  boy  in  the  house. 
My  husband  died  at  three  o'clock.  He  lay  on  the  floor.  I 
could  see  the  features  of  Cangley  when  he  was  coming  towards 
me.  It  was  a  moonlight  night.  I  did  not  see  any  weapon 
in  his  hand.  I  can  only  speak  from  what  I  felt.  I  had  knives 
in  the  house.     None  of  them  was  used." 

On  cross-examination,  she  said  that  the  prisoner  had 
not  been  in  that  part  of  the  country  for  ten  years ;  that 
he  did  not  seem  to  have  any  grudge  about  the  ass  having 
bitten  off  his  hand ;  and  that  they  were  not  talking  of 
money  matters. 

Immediately  after  the  act,  Cangley  went  to  the  nearest 
police-station  and  gave  himself  up,  saying  that  he  had 
stabbed  a  man.  He  told  the  man's  name,  and  where  the 
man  lived,  and  said  the  weapon  he  used  was  a  clasp- 
knife,  which  he  had  thrown  into  a  bog. 

It  was  testified  that  shortly  before  the  homicide 
Cangley  had  been  in  prison,  but  for  what  cause,  or  how 
long,  it  was  not  stated. 

When  asked  by  the  Court  why  sentence  of  death 
should  not  be  pronounced  upon  him  (for,  of  course,  he 
was  convicted),  he  replied  that  "  he  was  unconscious  of 
the  act." 

The  counsel  for  the  Crown,  in  referring  to  the  motives 
for  the  act,  suggested  that  he  might  have  been  actuated 
by  a  feeling  of  revenge  on  account  of  the  mutilation  he 
had  suffered  while  in  Reilly's  service,  or  that  his  in- 

17 


258  CASE   OF   BERNARD   CANGLEY. 

tention  was  to  get  possession  of  Reilly's  money.  It  was 
not  pretended,  however,  that  either  of  these  suggestions 
was  supported  by  one  tittle  of  evidence.  The  counsel 
for  the  prisoner  rested  his  defence  on  the  plea  of  in- 
sanity. No  medical  expert  testified ;  but  the  surgeon 
who  was  called  to  the  Reillys  was  asked  some  questions 
respecting  insanity.  The  Court  laid  down  the  rule  of 
law  according  to  one  of  the  oldest  patterns ;  viz.,  if  the 
prisoner  did  not  understand  the  nature  of  the  act,  or,  if 
he  understood  it,  did  not  know  it  was  wrong,  then  he  is 
not  responsible  for  the  act.  The  verdict  of  Guilty  was 
approved  by  the  Court,  who  seem  to  have  been  much 
scandalized  by  the  pretence  of  insanity. 

Regarding  the  case  from  a  very  different  stand-point, 
we  are  necessarily  led  to  very  different  conclusions. 
The  act  in  question  was  prompted,  of  course,  either  by 
some  rational  motive  of  interest  or  passion,  or  by  an 
insane  impulse ;  and  although  we  are  obliged  to  found 
our  conclusions  upon  a  very  meagre  account  of  the  case, 
yet  we  can  scarcely  doubt  their  correctness. 

The  counsel  for  the  Crown  did  not  pretend  to  assign 
a  motive  for  the  act,  for  he  was  well  aware  that  the  cir- 
cumstances attending  it  absolutely  forbade  it.  Who  ever 
heard  of  a  man  arising  in  the  night  for  the  purpose 
of  robbing  or  murdering  his  host,  walking  so  heavily 
as  to  wake  up  his  wife,  and  calmly  speaking  to  her  as  he 
approached  her  door?  It  is  impossible  to  believe  that 
any  one  in  his  senses  would  proceed  to  execute  such 
a  purpose  in  such  a  manner.  And  the  absurdity,  of 
the  notion  is  heightened  by  the  fact  that  the  person, 
after  accomplishing  his  end,  straightway  goes  to  the 
police  and  tells  them  what  he  has  done.  The  annals  of 
crime,  we  venture  to  say,  furnish  no  parallel  to  such  a 
case.     If  his  purpose  were  to  kill,  he  scarcely  accom- 


CASE   OF   BERNARD    CANGLEY.  259 

plishes  it ;  and  if  it  were  to  rob,  he  leaves  the  house 
without  even  making  the  first  attempt. 

The  only  other  theory  on  which  the  prisoner's  con- 
duct can  be  explained  is  that  of  insanity.  The  indi- 
cations of  this  disease,  it  must  be  admitted,  were  few  and 
indecisive ;  but  this  is  just  what  might  have  been  ex- 
pected in  the  form  of  mental  disease  supposed  to  have 
existed  here.  It  must  have  been  a  paroxysm  of  transi- 
tory mania,  suddenly  beginning  and  as  suddenly  ending, 
after  the  briefest  possible  duration.  The  cases  of  this 
kind  on  record,  though  few,  certainly,  are  so  well  attested 
that  we  can  scarcely  deny  the  existence  of  the  form  of 
insanity  which  they  illustrate.  And  it  is  a  noticeable 
feature  of  most  of  them,  that  the  patient  is  bent  on 
destroying  life.  Apart  from  the  absence  of  all  rational 
motive,  the  grounds  on  which  we  must  rest  our  belief 
that  Cangley's  was  a  case  of  transitory  mania  are  his 
own  declarations,  that  at  the  moment  he  saw  flashes  of 
fire,  and  that  he  was  unconscious  of  the  act.  This  state- 
ment about  the  flashes  of  fire  does  not  look  like  one  made 
up  for  the  occasion.  Such  a  notion  would  not  be  likely 
to  occur  to  a  person  of  his  grade  of  culture  ;  and  the 
perception  which  it  implied  has  been  often  noticed  in 
abnormal  movements  of  the  cerebral  system.  The  sim- 
ulation of  such  a  trait  implies  more  knowledge  of  disease 
and  a  nicer  art  than  can  be  fairly  attributed  to  the  pris- 
oner. Indeed,  a  sane  man  would  have  so  committed  the 
act  as  to  render  simulation  unnecessary.  He  had  only  to 
get  down  quietly  into  the  room  of  his  hosts,  and  either 
rob  them  or  inflict  the  fatal  wound  while  they  were  yet 
sleeping,  and  hurry  away  before  being  recognized. 

It  cannot  be,  as  he  declared  at  the  trial,  that  he  was 
"  unconscious  "  of  what  he  was  doing,  using  the  term 
in  its  ordinary  signification,  because  after  the  homicide 


260  CASE   OF   BERNARD    CANGLEY. 

he  told  the  police  precisely  what  he  had  done.  He 
probably  meant  what  multitudes  of  the  insane  have  said 
before,  under  similar  circumstances,  that  he  did  not 
know  why  he  should  have  done  such  a  thing.  He  may 
have  heard  others  use  the  word  "  unconscious  "  in  speak- 
ing of  his  mental  condition,  and  naturally  supposed  that 
to  be  the  proper  word  for  him  to  use  in  order  to  de- 
scribe this  unusual  state  of  mind.  Of  course,  such  a 
person  must  not  be  held  to  a  very  correct  application 
of  metaphysical  terms. 

There  (5an  scarcely  be  a  reasonable  doubt  that  Cang- 
ley  committed  the  bloody  act  in  a  short  and  sudden 
paroxysm  of  mania,  and  under  an  impulse  that  he 
could  neither  understand  nor  restrain.  Of  course,  he 
was  entitled  to  an  acquittal,  while  society  was  equally 
entitled  to  such  a  disposal  of  his  person  as  would  have 
prevented  any  repetition  of  the  murderous  act.  The 
occurrence  of  the  homicide  shortly  after  going  to  bed, 
and  probably  going  to  sleep,  would  naturally  raise  a 
suspicion  that  Cangley  was  in  a  state  of  somnolentia, 
or  sleep-drunkenness,  as  the  Germans  call  it,  when 
the  person  suddenly  awakes  while  dreaming  of  being 
assaulted  or  threatened  in  a  frightful  manner,  some 
minutes  elapsing  before  he  fully  comes  to  himself.  In 
this  state  of  mental  confusion  and  alarm,  he  mistakes 
the  first  person  who  comes  within  reach  for  his  imagi- 
nary foe,  and  attacks  -him  with  whatever  weapon  comes 
to  hand.  It  is  possible  that  Cangley's  was  a  case  of  this 
kind  ;  but  the  evidence,  lamentably  meagre  as  it  is,  would 
hardly  warrant  this  conclusion.  He  did  not  pretend  that 
he  had  been  dreaming,  though,  if  such  had  been  the 
case,  it  is  inconceivable  that  he  should  have  omitted  to 
speak  of  it  when  describing  his  state  of  mind,  unless  we 
suppose  —  and  this  is  not  at  all  unlikely  —  that  such  an 


CASE   OF   BERNARD    CAXGLEY.  261 

explanation  seemed  to  him  less  credible  by  others  than 
that  which  he  actually  gave.  His  acquaintances  might 
have  thrown  some  light  on  the  matter,  but  it  is  one  of 
the  many  curious  features  of  this  case  that  not  one  of 
his  family  or  old  friends  appeared  on  the  witness- 
stand. 

Here  this  account  of  a  rare  and  interesting  case 
might  properly  end,  but  it  gives  rise  to  some  reflections 
that  deserve  to  be  very  thoughtfully  considered.  It 
appears  that  no  expert  was  called  to  testify  respecting 
the  prisoner's  mental  condition,  or  to  enlighten  the  court 
and  jury  respecting  the  nature  of  transitory  mania ;  he 
was  not  recommended  to  mercy,  nor  was  any  attempt 
made  to  obtain  a  farther  observation  of  his  case.  How 
striking  the  contrast,  in  this  respect,  presented  by  the 
case  of  Townley  !  He  was  examined  by  a  distinguished 
expert,  before  the  trial,  who  testified  that  he  was  insane. 
Next,  a  board  of  magistrates,  assisted  by  medical  men, 
examined  him,  and  pronounced  him  insane.  Then  a 
committee  of  the  Board  of  Commissioners  in  Lunacy, 
appointed  by  the  government,  examined  him,  and  pro- 
nounced him  insane  ;  and,  finally,  another  committee  of 
experts  was  appointed  by  the  government  for  the  same 
purpose,  by  whom  he  was  declared  to  be  sane.  The 
result  of  these  proceedings  was,  that  execution  was 
stayed  until  the  question  of  his  insanity  was  effectually 
settled  by  his  killing  himself  under  remarkable  circum- 
stances. The  difference  between  these  two  cases  was, 
that  one  had  friends  able  and  willing  to  obtain  for  him 
every  possible  privilege,  while  the  other  had  none.  Had 
Cangley  been  subjected  to  the  same  sort  of  inquisition 
that  Townley  was,  who  can  suppose  that  his  fate  would 
not  have  been  averted?  Inequality  like  this  is  discredit- 
able to  any  system  of  criminal  procedure,  for  the  acquit- 


'262  CASE   OF   BERNARD   CANGLEY. 

tal  of  the  innocent  is  a  no  less  essential  end  of  justice 
than  the  conviction  of  the  guilty.  The  law  says,  that 
when  insanity  is  pleaded  in  defence  of  crime  it  must  be 
proved  ;  but  it  ignores  the  fact  that  the  party,  if  really 
insane,  is  necessarily  incompetent  to  prove  it,  and,  if 
poor  and  friendless,  is  unable  to  procure  the  assistance 
of  others  to  the  fullest  extent.  Are  we  not  warranted 
by  the  united  voices  of  humanity  and  science  in  claim- 
ing, as  a  right,  not  as  a  favor  to  be  purchased  by  wealth 
or  influence,  that  when  reasonable  doubts  are  raised 
respecting  the  sanity  of  the  prisoner  in  a  criminal  suit, 
the  law  shall  provide  for  a  satisfactory  inquisition  into 
his  mental  condition  ? 

Medical  men  have  been  much  reproached  for  the  facil- 
ity with  which  they  allow  themselves  to  support  the  plea 
of  insanity  in  defence  of  crime.  For  their  efforts  in 
this  line  of  duty,  they  have  sometimes  been  exposed  to 
a  degree  of  public  odium  not  calculated  to  enhance  their 
peace  or  prosperity.  We  are  quite  willing,  for  one,  to  bear 
this  reproach,  provided  it  be  considered  in  connection 
with  that  practice  of  the  law  which  was  exemplified  in 
Cangley's  case.  If  those  are  reprehensible  views  which, 
one  time  in  a  hundred,  promote  the  acquittal  of  a  guilty 
man,  how  shall  we  characterize  a  system  which  no  less 
often,  at  least,  procures  the  conviction  of  one  really 
irresponsible  for  his  acts?  Are  we  to  be  charged  with 
arrogance  and  disrespect  because  we  speak  in  fitting 
terms  of  those  who  thus  ignore  the  teachings  of  science, 
and,  guided  only  by  some  poor  metaphysical  conceits 
that  have  nothing  to  recommend  them  but  their  age, 
sit  in  judgment  on  their  fellow-men?  When  we  are 
told,  for  instance,  that  delusion  is  not  a  valid  defence  for 
a  criminal  act,  unless  the  act  is  amply  warranted  by  the 
circumstances,  supposing  the  notion  that  prompted  it  to 


CASE   OF   BERNARD    CANGLEY.  263 

have  been  really  true,  instead  of  a  delusion,  are  we  to 
speak  softly  and  blandly  about  such  a  rule  of  law,  and 
refrain  from  saying,  with  all  possible  plainness  of  speech, 
that  it  conflicts  with  the  elementary  truths  of  insanity 
on  which  only  such  rules  should  be  founded  ?  It  seems 
to  be  a  spurious  kind  of  comity  that  would  oblige  us 
to  withhold  our  censure,  even  in  the  face  of  the  whole 
bench  of  English  judges. 

One  of  the  results  of  the  more  careful  and  extensive 
study  of  insanity  in  these  latter  days  is  the  discovery 
that,  in  the  state  of  mind  which  is  characterized  by 
delusion,  the  patient  may  have  lost  all  power  of  dis- 
tinguishing right  from  wrong,  even  to  the  utter  destruc- 
tion of  all  moral  responsibility.  Another  is  the  discovery 
of  a  mental  condition  in  which  the  understanding  and 
will  are  completely  dissevered,  and  the  patient  is  borne 
on  to  the  commission  of  some  bloody  deed  by  an  irresist- 
ible impulse.  These  are  not  speculations  or  conjectures, 
but  well  observed,  well  authenticated  ;  and  not  to  recog- 
nize them  as  such  in  any  attempt  to  fix.  the  limits  of 
legal  responsibility  is  no  more  a  mark  of  wisdom  than  it 
would  be  to  teach  chemistry  now  as  it  was  in  the  days  of 
Priestley,  or  to  try  old  women  for  witchcraft  in  the  spirit 
and  understanding  of  Sir  Matthew  Hale.  Medical  juris- 
prudence can  be  of  any  worth  only  so  far  as  it  faithfully 
represents  the  acknowledged  truths  of  science. 


TRIAL   OF  WINNEMORE. 


On  the  29th  of  April  last,  George  W.  Winnemore  was 
indicted  by  the  grand  jury  in  Philadelphia,  Pa.,  for  the 
murder  of  Dorcas  Magilton,  on  the  25th  of  April, 
four  days  before ;  and  the  3d  of  May  following  was 
assigned  for  his  trial,  before  the  Court  of  Oyer  and 
Terminer. 

It  appeared  in  evidence  that  the  husband  of  the 
deceased  came  home  one  day,  after  an  hour's  absence, 
and  was  let  in  by  the  prisoner,  who  said  he  had  just 
before  come  in  and  found  Mrs.  M.  with  her  throat  cut, 
and  quite  dead.  The  prisoner  went  for  a  policeman, 
and  was  himself  arrested  while  leaving  the  premises, 
shortly  after.  The  evidence  against  him  was  circum- 
stantial, of  course,  and  consisted  of  but  few  facts.  A 
razor  identified  as  his  was  found  in  the  privy ;  two  bank- 
bills  of  two  dollars  each  were  in  the  possession  of  the 
deceased  the  day  before,  and  two  bills  of  two  dollars 
each  were  found  in  the  prisoner's  pocket.  His  own 
statement,  that  he  entered  the  house  a  few  minutes  only 
previously  to  the  husband,  was  disproved  by  two  wit- 
nesses, neighbors,  who  had  been  looking  in  that  direc- 
tion from  their  windows,  steadily,  for  half  an  hour  before 
they  saw  Mr.  M.  go  to  the  door.  To  meet  this  evidence, 
the  prisoner's  counsel  contended  that  it  was  impossible 


TRIAL   OF   WINNEMORE.  265 

to  identify  so  common  a  thing  as  a  razor,  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  which  may  be  made  after  the  same  pattern  ; 
that,  though  the  bills  were  of  the  same  denomination, 
yet  their  identity  was  not  established  ;  that  he  was  not 
pressed  for  money,  and  could  have  borrowed  it  from  his 
brother,  if  necessary  ;  that  he  had  never  been  guilty  of 
any  criminal  act,  and  was  regarded  by  all  who  knew 
him'  (and  the  evidence  on  this  point  was  quite  satisfac- 
tory) as  a  quiet,  inoffensive,  well-disposed  young  man. 

The  defence  did  not  consist  solely  in  an  endeavor  to 
prove  an  alibi.  It  appeared  that  the  prisoner  began  to 
suffer  from  epilepsy  at  two  or  three  years  of  age,  and 
continued  so  to  suffer  until  he  was  ten  or  eleven  years 
old,  Evidence  respecting  his  disease  subsequent  to  that 
period  was  entirely  wanting,  except  that  on  his  way  to 
court  one  day,  in  the  course  of  the  trial,  he  had  a  fit. 
It  appeared,  too,  that  when  seven  years  old  he  had  a  fall 
on  the  head,  described  as  being  a  very  serious  one,  and 
now  indicated  by  a  scar.  The  witnesses  who  testified 
to  his  having  fits  said  he  would  sometimes  have  thirty 
or  forty  in  a  day.  Of  late  years,  his  brother  said,  he 
professed  to  be  able  to  see  the  dead  as  plainly  as  he  saw 
the  living.  At  times  he  imagined  himself  to  be  an  In- 
dian chief,  and  would  talk  the  Indian  language.  The 
words  of  the  witness  would  seem  to  imply  that  this 
sort  of  clairvoyance  was  paroxysmal,  because  "  when  I 
thought  he  was  himself,"  he  said,  "  I  would  ask  him 
about  it,  and  he  would  know  nothing  of  it."  He  also 
professed  to  be  able  to  know  what  was  going  on  miles 
away.  His  sister  stated,  that  at  times  during  the  last 
eight  or  ten  months  "  he  acted  very  foolish,"  "  would 
make  motions  with  his  hands,  and  talk  strangely,"  and 
that  she  was  afraid  to  be  alone  with  him.  To  another 
witness  he  seemed  to  talk    very    incoherently,  saying, 


266  TRIAL   OF   WINNEMORE. 

among  other  things,  that  he  saw  about  him  spirits  the 
size  of  a  pin's  head.  His  mother  and  elder  sister  both 
testified  to  strange  manifestations  during  the  last  few- 
months.  The  former  said,  "  He  would  laugh,  jerk  about, 
make  queer  faces."  "  He  would  dance  around  the  room 
like  an  Indian."  "  Sometimes  his  eye  looked  very  vacant, 
sometimes  very  glassy."  "  I  often  felt  afraid  of  him." 
The  sister  said,  "  He  would  make  peculiar  grimaces,  and 
twist  his  fingers  in  a  peculiar  manner."  "  I  sometimes 
feared  he  would  do  me  harm."  Others  spoke  of  his  being 
in  an  unconscious  state  half  an  hour  at  a  time  ;  and  others, 
of  his  being  very  absent-minded.  It  appeared  that  he 
had  made  two  attempts,  at  least,  upon  his  own  life,  and 
that  an  uncle  had  committed  suicide. 

Upon  this  state  of  facts,  the  counsel  set  up  the  de- 
fence of  insanity.  Several  physicians  were  examined, 
only  one  of  whom  could  be  regarded  as  an  expert  in 
insanity ;  but  their  testimony  was  not  founded  upon 
such  a  knowledge  of  the  case,  either  in  its  general  or  par- 
ticular relations,  as  was  needed  to  make  it  very  satisfac- 
tory. Their  testimony  was  confined  to  some  desultory 
remarks  respecting  the  effect  of  epilepsy  on  the  mind, 
but  it  embraced  nothing  like  a  complete  methodical 
statement  of  facts.  Indeed,  the  counsel  for  the  govern- 
ment were  not  disposed  to  have  it,  and  did  what  they 
could  to  prevent  it.  When  the  testimony  referred  to 
the  nature  of  epilepsy  generally,  they  interposed  the 
objection  that  it  had  no  connection  with  the  prisoner's 
case  ;  and,  when  it  had  special  reference  to  the  prisoner, 
it  was  stopped,  on  the  plea  that  the  witness  had  not 
heard  all  the  evidence  in  the  case.  No  medical  witness 
had  made  a  particular  examination  of  the  prisoner,  nor 
heard  all  the  evidence  given  at  the  trial.  The  plea  of 
insanity,  thus  feebly   supported,  could   hardly   be    ex- 


TRIAL   OF   WINNEMORE.  267 

pected  to  prevail  ;  and  accordingly  the  prisoner  was 
convicted,  and  on  the  29th  of  August  was  executed, 
persisting  to  the  last  in  declaring  that  he  did  not 
commit  the  deed. 

The  counsel,  feeling  that  the  trial  had  not  been  a  fair 
one,  endeavored  to  obtain  a  new  trial,  but  failed.  They 
then  requested  the  Governor  to  appoint  a  medical  com- 
mission for  the  purpose  of  investigating  the  prisoner's 
mental  condition,  and  in  this  too  they  failed.  As  a  last 
resort,  a  few  days  before  the  execution  they  requested 
some  gentlemen,  who  were  familiar  with  epilepsy  and 
insanity,  to  have  a  personal  interview  with  the  prisoner, 
the  result  of  which  was  the  following  petition  addressed 
to  the  Governor  :  — 

To  his  Excellency,  Johx  W.  Geary  : 

The  undersigned,  all  of  whom  have  been  engaged  for 
many  years  in  the  care  of  the  insane,  have,  this  day,  at  the 
request  of  Damon  Y.  Kilgore,  had  an  interview  with  George 
W.  AYinnemore,  and,  in  consequence  thereof,  beg  leave  to 
make  the  following  statement :  — 

Winnemore  now,  and  probably  for  some  time  past,  shows 
indications  of  an  abnormal  state  of  mind ;  of  a  mental  con- 
dition which  may  be  attributable  to  the  epileptic  fits  to  which 
he  has  been  subject  from  infancy.  In  regard  to  its  degree 
and  kind,  we  feel  unable  to  speak  exactly,  because  one  inter- 
view, though  j^rolonged  to  between  two  and  three  hours,  was 
not  sufficient  for  the  purpose. 

We  would  also  state,  that  epilepsy,  especially  when  of  long- 
duration,  oftener  than  otherwise  impairs  the  mental  powers, 
sometimes  in  one  way,  sometimes  in  another ;  and  therefore, 
whenever  an  epileptic  is  charged  with  crime,  nothing  less 
than  an  exhaustive  investigation  of  his  history  and  of  all  the 
circumstances  of  the  case  can  remove  the  suspicion  that  the 
crime  may  have  been  committed  in  one  of  those  abnormal 
conditions  that  are  so  often  the  sequel  of  epilepsy. 


268  TEIAL   OF   WINNEMORE. 

In  consideration  of  these  facts,  therefore,  we  respectfully 
pray  your  Excellency  to  stay  his  execution  for  a  few  weeks, 
in  order  that  a  deliberate  scientific  investigation  of  Winne- 
more's  case  may  be  made  by  the  undersigned. 

Isaac  Rat,  M.D., 

Late  Superintendent  of  the  Butler  Hospital  for  the  Insane  at  Providence,  R.  I. 

J.    H.    WORTHTNGTON,  M.D., 

Superintendent  of  Friends' Asylum  for  the  Insane,  Philadelphia. 

,S.  Preston  Jones,  M.D., 

Assistant  Physician  Penn.  Hospital  for  the  Insane. 

In  the  interview  referred  to,  the  prisoner  was  found 
to  be  a  spare,  slim  young  man,  of  a  decidedly  nervous 
temperament,  with  a  quiet,  ingenuous  manner,  and  a 
cheerful  expression.  He  was  disposed  to  talk,  and 
answered  all  inquiries  freely  and  fully.  His  language 
was  free  from  low,  coarse  expressions,  and  indicated 
some  degree  of  intellectual  culture.  He  showed  a  little 
carelessness  of  dress,  and  a  certain  kind  of  untidiness, 
very  characteristic  of  some  classes  of  the  insane. 

He  said  he  had  been  an  epileptic  from  his  earliest 
recollection,  the  fits  occurring  sometimes  several  in 
the  day,  and  sometimes  at  intervals  of  a  twelve-month. 
They  were  generally  brief,  and  within  half  an  hour 
or  so  he  was  himself  again.  Occasionally  he  did  not 
so  readily  recover,  and  was  disabled  for  a  week  or 
two.  He  had  no  premonition  of  the  attacks,  though 
sometimes  they  were  preceded  by  a  little  exhilaration, 
indicated  by  unusual  laughing  and  talking.  Neither 
did  he  experience  the  epileptic  aura,  nor  was  he  aware 
that  the  fits  were  ever  simply  epileptiform,  scarcely 
visible  to  the  observer.  He  was  not  aware  that  the 
fits  were  preceded  or  followed  by  an  unusual  sense  of 
distrust  or  suspicion  or  apprehension.     He  could  call  to 


TRIAL   OF    TVINXEMORE.  269 

mind  two  occasions  of  being  quite  unconscious  for 
several  hours,  though  continuing  his  employment,  and 
appearing  to  others  as  usual.  On  the  first,  which  hap- 
pened while  quite  a  boy,  he  got  a  boat  and  spent  the 
day  in  rowing  about  on  the  river  ;  and,  when  asked  about 
it  the  next  day,  he  had  no  recollection  of  the  occurrence, 
the  period  being  an  utter  blank  in  his  mind.  During 
the  last  few  years,  this  paroxysmal  kind  of  unconscious- 
ness had  occurred  several  times,  but  had  not  extended 
beyond  half  an  hour  or  a  little  more.  He  believed  in  all 
the  notions  of  spiritualism  as  professed  and  practised  at 
the  present  time,  but  he  also  believed  something  more 
than  this.  His  spirit,  he  said,  had  the  power  of  leaving 
the  body  at  will,  and  going  to  distant  lands  and  to  other 
worlds.  The  spirits  of  both  the  dead  and  the  living 
often  appeared  before  him,  clothed  in  bodily  shape  and 
perfectly  visible  to  the  bodily  eye,  and  they  conversed 
together  in  audible  language.  He  regarded  himself 
as  made  a  victim  to  serve  some  ulterior  purpose ;  and 
when  asked  what  enemies  he  had  who  would  perse- 
cute him  so,  he  intimated  that  the  matter  originated  in 
deeper  counsels  than  those  of  man.  When  pressed  still 
farther  on  this  point,  he  declared  that  for  some  good  and 
wise  purpose,  known  only  to  God  himself,  he  was  to  be 
sacrificed  ;  and  he  was  perfectly  willing.  On  the  subject 
of  his  approaching  death  he  spoke  calmly,  and  even 
cheerfully.  He  said  he  did  not  expect  a  reprieve,  nor 
did  he  wish  to  live.  Life  had  no  charms  for  him.  He  had 
tried  repeatedly  to  take  his  own  life,  and  while  in  the 
service  he  always  had  exposed  himself  in  every  possible 
way,  in  the  hope  that  an  enemy's  bullet  would  do  for 
him  what  he  had  been  unable  to  do  for  himself.  He 
wished  for  no  clergyman,  because  no  clergyman  could 
tell  him  any  thing  about  the  spiritual  world  that  he  did 


270  TRIAL   OF   WINNEMORE. 

not  already  know.  He  believed  in  God,  and  in  future 
rewards  and  punishments  ;  and  being  perfectly  innocent 
of  the  crime  laid  to  his  charge,  why  should  he  have  a 
clergyman?  He  stoutly  maintained  that  he  did  not  com- 
mit the  act  for  which  he  was  to  suffer.  He  had  been  in 
the  habit  of  visiting  the  deceased  occasionally,  their  com- 
mon belief  in  spiritualism  having  led  to  the  acquaintance  ; 
and  on  this  occasion,  going  into  the  house  as  usual,  he 
found  her  dead  —  murdered.  In  this  interview  he  ex- 
hibited none  of  the  traits  of  a  criminal,  either  in  his 
language,  manner,  or  countenance,  but  rather  those  of  a 
dreamy,  visionary  youth,  whose  speculations  had  carried 
him  far  beyond  the  common  experience  of  man, —  so 
far,  in  fact,  that  he  hardly  knew,  at  any  time,  whether  he 
was  in  the  body  or  out  of  the  body.  In  these  statements 
respecting  his  own  mental  experience,  there  is  no  reason 
to  doubt  his  entire  belief.  The  air  of  sincerity  and 
good  faith  by  which  they  were  accompanied  could  not 
have  been  counterfeited  even  by  a  consummate  actor. 
We  ought,  perhaps,  to  except  from  the  scope  of  this 
remark  the  denial  of  his  guilt ;  for  there  was  nothing 
peculiar  in  that,  considered  apart  from  the  rest  of  his 
discourse. 

Here  our  knowledge  of  the  prisoner's  history  ends. 
Farther  investigation  might  have  removed  all  the  ob- 
scurity resting  on  his  psychological  condition ;  but  we 
need  not,  on  this  account,  withhold  the  impressions  made 
by  the  facts  that  came  within  our  reach. 

Whether  from  hereditary  predisposition  or  not,  it  is 
obvious  that  the  prisoner  was  born  with  a  nervous  sys- 
tem strongly  inclined  to  morbid  manifestations.  One  of 
these,  which  actually  made  its  appearance  at  a  very 
early  period,  was  epilepsy,  which,  of  all  the  forms  of 
cerebral  disorder,   stands  among  the  gravest.     Coinci- 


TBIAL   OF   WINNEMOBE.  271 

dent  with  this,  either  as  a  direct  effect,  or  a  collateral 
result  of  the  original  nervous  defect,  there  appeared  in 
childhood  instances  of  unconsciousness,  which,  patho- 
logically considered,  may  be  affiliated  to  somnambulism 
and  catalepsy.  And  these  continued  to  occur  through 
the  latter  years  of  his  life,  though  not  perhaps  in  so 
well  marked  a  form.  It  could  hardly  have  been  ex- 
pected that  his  intellectual  operations  would  entirely 
escape  from  the  influence  of  this  abnormal  condition  of 
the  nervous  system.  Hence,  his  distaste  for  exact  and 
practical  knowledge  requiring  continuous  attention  and 
effort,  and  his  fondness  of  reverie  and  dreamy  specula- 
tion, which  needed  neither  discipline  nor  preparation. 
This  trait  strengthened  with  advancing  years,  until 
his  whole  intellectual  life  became  little  better  than  a 
dream,  in  which  the  inward  and  the  outward,  the  real 
and  the  imaginary,  were  inextricably  mingled  and  con- 
fused. 

For  legal  purposes,  it  might  seem  necessary  to  sepa- 
rate the  epileptic  element  from  the  rest,  and  ascertain 
the  precise  amount  of  its  influence  upon  the  moral 
character  and  conduct.  But  the  elements  of  nervous 
disorder  were  too  long  and  too  intimately  associated 
to  allow  of  this.  Even  under  very  different  circum- 
stances, the  effect  of  epilepsy  on  the  mental  manifes- 
tations is  often  determined,  somewhat,  by  the  training 
and  habits  of  the  individual.  Not  to  the  same  extent, 
certainly,  that  mania  is,  but  enough  to  be  taken  into 
the  account  in  any  estimate  of  its  psychological  con- 
sequences. In  this  case  it  may  have  had  the  effect  of 
rendering  his  notions  on  certain  subjects  still  more 
extravagant  and  remote  from  the  line  of  common  belief 
than  they  would  otherwise  have  been.  Whether  or  not 
it  ever  produced  unequivocal   delusions,  is  a  point  on 


272  TRIAL   OF   WINNEMORE. 

which  the  evidence  is  not  very  clear.  His  spiritualistic 
experience  was  that,  for  the  most  part,  of  thousands  of 
other  people  never  supposed  to  be  insane  ;  and  yet  it  is 
difficult  to  draw  the  dividing  line  between  this  kind  of 
experience  and  downright  insanity.  That  the  one  passes 
into  the  other  is  a  matter  of  common  observation,  and,  if 
some  of  his  most  extravagant  notions  respecting  his 
intercourse  with  spirits  be  held  in  common  with  a  few 
other  spiritualists,  it  may  be  questioned  whether  these 
are  not  of  the  class  who  have  entered  this  transition 
state,  or  even  completed  their  passage  through  it.  The 
probability  of  such  a  fact  can  scarcely  be  doubted.  We 
know  that  the  delusions  of  the  insane  are  often  merely 
exaggerations  of  their  habitual  belief.  Belief  in  spirit- 
ualism in  any  shape  is  more  a  matter  of  temperament 
than  of  evidence  and  reason,  and  thus  is  furnished 
an  additional  proof  that  Winnemore  was  endowed  with 
a  nervous  system  peculiarly  liable  to  abnormal  activity. 
I  do  not  mean  to  convey  the  idea  that  the  facts  of  spir- 
itualism are  entirely  the  creation  of  fancy  or  of  fraud. 
Many  of  them  are  susceptible  of  proof,  and  are  attested 
by  evidence  that  places  them  beyond  a  reasonable  doubt. 
They  indicate  the  existence  of  agencies,  certainly,  that 
have  not  yet  been  admitted  into  the  philosophy  of  the 
schools.  It  is  to  be  regretted  that  the  prevalent  ten- 
dency is  to  ignore  them  entirely,  rather  than  to  make 
them  a  subject  of  scientific  investigation.  It  is  sur- 
prising that  physicians,  especially,  with  such  well  recog- 
nized affections  before  them  as  catalepsy,  somnambulism, 
ecstasy,  and  double  consciousness,  should  jump  to  the 
conclusion  that  all  the  facts  of  spiritualism  and  animal 
magnetism  are  utterly  anomalous  and  impossible. 

Winnemore's  notion  about  his  being  a  victim,  which 
might  eeem  at  first  sight  to  be  a  genuine  delusion,  was, 


TRIAL   OF   WINNEMORE.  273 

probably,  only  a  rational  notion  carried  to  the  utmost 
verge  of  extravagance.  When  his  innocence  should 
be  proved  hereafter  to  the  satisfaction  of  everybody,  as 
he  believed  it  would,  the  consequence  would  be  an  utter 
change  of  popular  opinion  on  the  subject  of  capital 
punishment,  and  thus  he  might  regard  himself  as  a 
sacrifice  offered  up  for  the  good  of  humanity,  —  not 
merely  as  a  martyr  whose  blood,  in  the  ordinary  and 
regular  course  of  events,  would  become  the  seed  of  a 
great  benefit,  but  as  the  favored  child  of  a  magnificent 
destiny  prepared  and  arranged  in  the  counsels  of  the 
Almighty. 

It  was  not  alleged  that  his  disease  had  produced  any 
moral  perversion.  On  the  contrary,  the  evidence  showed 
that  he  always  displayed  the  same  mild,  quiet,  inoffen- 
sive disposition,  from  first  to  last.  An  attempt  was 
made  on  the  trial  to  prove  that  he  had  stolen,  or.  was 
suspected  of  having  stolen,  from  his  friends  ;  but  it  came 
to  nothing. 

If  the  deed  was  committed  under  the  influence  of  his 
disease,  —  supposing  the  charge  to  have  been  true,  —  we 
are  necessarily  led  to  inquire  what  particular  phase  of 
it  was  present.  No  one  supposes  that  his  mind  was  gen- 
erally so  impaired  as  to  be  incapable  of  discerning  right 
from  wrong,  of  knowing  that  murder  is  forbidden  both 
by  human  and  divine  law,  or  of  controlling  the  feeblest 
impulses  of  passion.  The  act  could  not  have  sprung 
from  such  a  condition  as  that.  Neither  is  there  any 
ground  for  the  supposition  that  be  was  under  the  do- 
minion of  that  blind  fury  so  frequently  exhibited  by 
epileptics  immediately  before  or  after  a  fit;  or  that  his 
mind  was  overpowered  by  apprehensions  of  danger ;  or 
a  sense  of  persecution  and  outrage  from  persons,  real  or 
imaginary,  around  him.     Neither  of  these  phases  of  the 

18 


274  TRIAL   OF   WINNEMOEE. 

disease  had  he  ever  exhibited,  and  though  it  is  not  im- 
possible, perhaps,  that  the  latter  occurred  on  this  occa- 
sion for  the  first  time,  there  is  not  the  slightest  reason 
to  believe  that  such  was  the  fact.  We  then  come  to  the 
only  other  epileptic  condition  in  which  the  act  could 
have  happened,  —  that  of  utter  unconsciousness  ;  and 
though  we  have  no  direct  evidence  respecting  it,  neither 
are  we  met  by  any  circumstance  of  the  case  that  would 
render  it  impossible.  He  had  been  in  this  state  more 
than  once  before,  and  it  was  one  of  its  incidents  that  he 
had  no  idea  whatever  of  what  he  thought  or  did  while 
in  it.  It  appears  that  the  woman  was  fond  of  making 
pictures  of  a  peculiar  kind  ;  and  he  declared  that  it 
affected  him  very  strangely  and  painfully  to  look  at 
them,  insomuch  that  when  they  were  exhibited  in  court 
during  the  trial  he  begged  that  they  might  be  removed, 
for  he  could  not  endure  the  sight.  Coming  upon  them, 
suddenly  perhaps,  as  he  entered  the  room,  they  might 
have  had  the  effect  of  inducing  one  of  those  abnormal 
conditions  of  mind  in  which  his  acts  were  beyond  the 
reach  of  consciousness  or  proper  will.  To  a  person  of 
his  very  susceptible  nervous  organization,  already  the 
subject  of  many  morbid  manifestations,  such  an  event 
might  not  have  been  impossible.  True,  the  supposition 
borders  on  the  marvellous  ;  but  we  must  bear  in  mind 
that  Winnemore  manifested  a  class  of  phenomena  con- 
fessedly curious  and  obscure.  If  any  one  supposes  that 
the  marvellous  is  incompatible  with  true  science,  de- 
serving only  rebuke  and  derision,  let  him  consider  that 
every  step  in  the  progress  of  science  has  been  but  the 
repetition  of  a  marvel,  derided  at  first  as  unworthy  of 
the  serious  attention  of  the  philosopher,  and  welcomed 
at  last  with  triumphant  admiration  and  joy.  Whether, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  deed  was  committed  as  here  sup- 


TRIAL   OF    WINNEMORE.  275 

posed  is  a  question  that  cannot  be  conclusively  an- 
swered. Of  this,  however,  we  may  be  assured,  that  it 
was  either  thus  committed,  or  was  prompted  by  the 
ordinary  motives  of  crime,  —  interest  or  passion.  Diffi- 
culties surround  both  hypotheses,  while  the  question  is 
also  complicated  by  very  grave  doubts  as  to  whether 
the  deed  of  violence  was  done  by  the  prisoner  at  all. 
If  he  killed  the  woman  unconsciously,  he  might  also 
have  thrown  the  razor  into  the  privy  unconsciously ;  but 
all  this  would  not  have  prevented  his  knowing,  when 
he  came  to  himself,  that  he  entered  the  house  with  the 
razor  in  his  pocket,  for  such  must  have  been  the  fact. 
In  this  connection,  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  he 
always  denied  that  the  razor  found  in  the  privy  was  his, 
for  that,  he  declared,  got  broken  and  was  thrown  into 
the  street,  several  days  before.  On  the  other  hand,  it 
was  not  pretended  that  he  was  a  hardened  criminal, 
and  it  did  not  appear  that  he  had  led  a  vicious  life.  It 
seems  to  be  quite  incredible  that  the  alleged  motive  — 
that  of  getting  a  few  dollars — would  have  induced 
such  a  man  to  murder  a  woman,  deliberately  and  de- 
signedly, from  whom  he  had  experienced  nothing  but 
kindness. 

Farther  observation  and  inquiry  might  have  thrown 
more  light  on  this  interesting  case.  At  subsequent  in- 
terviews his  manner  and  manifestations  might  have 
been  different,  indicating  a  wider  reach  of  the  pathologi- 
cal element.  His  counsel  told  us  that  he  varied  consid- 
erably at  different  times,  and  that  during  the  trial  he 
was  sometimes  so  dull  that  they  could  hold  no  intelligent 
communication  with  him.  Something  might  have  been 
learned  from  those  who  had  been  conversant  with  him 
during  the  last  four  or  five  years,  while  he  was  serving  in 
the  army  at  a  distance  from  his  home  and  friends.    That 


276  TRIAL   OF   T7INNEM0RB. 

period  must  have  embraced  many  interesting  facts  in 
his  psychological  history,  and  it  is  to  be  regretted  that 
no  opportunity  occurred  for  learning  them.  Left  as  it  is, 
it  gives  the  physician  scope  for  abundant  speculation, 
but  no  certain  conclusion  ;  while  to  the  lawyer  its  results 
must  seem  more  like  a  triumph  of  ignorance  and  passion 
than  of  professional  skill  overcoming  every  device  and 
obstacle  and  arriving  at  last  to  a  sure  and  satisfactory 
end. 

It  is  a  wise  constitutional  provision  that  enables  the 
executive,  in  certain  cases,  to  remedy  the  mistakes  of 
the  judicial  authority,  and  secure  to  the  criminal  the 
benefit  of  those  mitigating  circumstances  of  which  the 
courts  can  take  no  cognizance.  Hampered  by  no  rigid 
rules  of  proceeding,  enjoying  a  certain  freedom  of  choice 
in  the  use  of  the  means  at  his  disposal,  allowed  to  go 
behind  and  beyond  the  records  of  the  courts,  the  Gov- 
ernor of  a  State  is  able,  in  the  exercise  of  his  preroga- 
tive, to  perform  a  service  of  the  highest  importance  to 
society.  Although  the  power  thus  given  to  him  is  to  be 
used  discreetly,  yet  its  use  is  not  a  matter  of  caprice 
or  arbitrary  will.  Whatever  course  he  may  take,  whether 
he  interposes  or  refrains  from  interposing,  he  is  respon- 
sible for  his  decision  to  the  conscience  and  understanding 
of  the  community,  —  not  merely  to  that  aggregate  of 
individuals  whose  suffrages  have  placed  him  in  power, 
but  to  that  immense  society  which  has  some  regard  for 
the  triumph  of  right  and  the  progress  of  humanity. 
Failing  to  obtain  a  new  trial,  Winnemore's  counsel 
appealed  to  the  Governor  to  appoint  a  medical  com- 
mission for  the  purpose  of  ascertaining,  by  a  suitable 
investigation,  the  prisoner's  mental  condition.  The 
appeal  was  unsuccessful.  Almost  at  the  very  last  mo- 
ment, they  engaged  the  gentlemen  whose  names  have 


TRIAL   OF   WINNEMORE.  277 

been  already  given,  to  visit  the  prisoner,  with  the  hope 
that  even  in  a  single  interview,  for  no  more  was  possible, 
they  might  find  enough  to  warrant  them  in  asking  for 
a  stay  of  the  execution,  in  order  that  they  might  have 
a    suitable  opportunity   for    making  a  thorough  exam- 
ination of  his  case.     The  result  has  been  already  given. 
The  wisdom    of  the    Governor's    course    is    not   very 
obvious.    It  would  seem  to  be  the  very  case  for  executive 
interposition.     The  prisoner  had  had  a  hasty  trial ;  im- 
portant evidence  had  arrived  too  late  ;  those  who  were 
well   acquainted    with    his    history,    psychological    and 
pathological,  during  his  latter  years,  were  too  far  off  to 
be  available ;  though   laboring  under  a  disease  which 
almost  invariably  impairs  the  mind,  no  physician  had 
examined  him  for  the  purpose  of  ascertaining  the  precise 
effect  which  it  had  exerted  upon  him  ;  poor,  and  compar- 
atively friendless,  he    was  without  the  usual  means  of 
securing  the  favorable  regards  of  men.     Circumstances 
like  these  pleaded  trumpet-tongued  for  every  privilege 
and  indulgence  which  the  laws  and  customs  of  the  land 
allow.     A   medical  commission,  whatever  might  be  the 
result  of  its  inquiries,  could  not  change  the  legal  status 
of  the  prisoner.     If  unfavorable   to  the   idea  of  mental 
impairment,  the  execution  would  have  happened  all  the 
same,  though  delayed  for  a  week  or  two.     If,  on   the 
other  hand,  it  showed  that  the  prisoner  was  really  irre- 
sponsible, from  the  long  continued  effect  of  disease,  the 
executive  might  have  felt  obliged  to  save  him,  and  far 
be  it  from  us  to  intimate  that  this  would  not  have  been 
gladly  done.     We  can  only  suppose  that  the  Governor 
had  too  readily  received  the  impression,  somewhat  cur- 
rent  among   intelligent  people,  that  the  defence  of  in- 
sanity is  generally  a  contrivance  of  ingenious  counsel, 
favored  by  fanciful  doctors,  for   saving  a  criminal  from 


278  TRIAL   OF   WINNEMORE. 

merited  punishment ;  and  consequently  that  no  proper 
purpose  would  be  served  by  disturbing  the  results  of 
the  trial.  However  that  may  be,  one  cannot  but  regret 
that  he  should  have  lost  the  opportunity  thus  offered  of 
adding  to  the  laurels  so  nobly  won  in  the  field  another 
not  less  durable  earned  in  the  humbler  service  of  hu- 
manity. 

The  case  of  Winnemore  has  brought  to  mind  that  of 
Fyler,  also  an  epileptic,   who  was  tried  in    Onondaga 
County,  N.  Y.,  in  1855,  for  killing  his  wife.     It  was  the 
first  time,  in  this  country,  to  my  knowledge,  when  epi- 
lepsy was  pleaded  in  defence  of  crime.     The  two  cases 
were  strikingly  similar  in  many  important  points.     Both 
men  were  young ;  in  both  the  disease  had  existed  several 
years,  but  without  producing  any  very  obvious  mental 
impairment  beyond  the  immediate   effects   of  a  fit;  in 
both  there  was  no  evidence  that  a  fit  had  occurred  about 
the  time  of  the  homicide,  or  that  they  had  exhibited 
any  of  the  ordinary    signs  of  a  fit ;  in  both  the   proof 
that  they  committed  the  act  at  all  was  only  circumstan- 
tial, and  both  protested  their  innocence  to  the  last ;  in 
both  there  was  an  apparent   absence  of  any  adequate 
motive.     In  other  respects  they  exhibited  a  remarkable 
contrast.      In    Fyler's    case    the  homicide  occurred  in 
February,  1854.      The   Grand   Jury    indicted  him  the 
following  March,  and  he  was  arraigned  for  trial  the  next 
June.     The    prisoner's    counsel    not   being   ready,  the 
case  was  postponed,  and  a  special  term  for  the  trial  was 
ordered  by  the  Governor,  in  November.     Another  post- 
ponement was  obtained,  and  the  trial  finally  came  on 
in  February,  1855,  or  a  year  after  the  act  was  committed. 
A  verdict  of  guilty   was  rendered,   when    his    counsel 
moved  a  suspension  of   sentence,  on  the  ground   that 
the  prisoner  was  then  insane.     In  this  they  succeeded. 


TRIAL    OF    WIXNEMORE.  279 

A  medical  commission  was  appointed  to  investigate 
his  mental  condition,  who  reported  that  he  was  then 
insane,  and  he  was  thereupon  committed  to  the  asylum 
at  Utica. 

A  word  or  two  more  before  I  close,  on  the  general 
issue  presented  by  such  cases  as  Winnemore's  and 
Fyler's.  It  can  scarcely  be  denied  that  epilepsy,  consid- 
ered as  a  source  of  mental  impairment,  has  not  been  so 
thoroughly  studied  as  most  other  forms  of  cerebral 
affection.  Physicians  have  given  their  attention  too  ex- 
clusively to  the  fit,  and  the  state  of  things  immediately 
preceding  and  succeeding  it ;  and  this  is  not  strange 
when  we  consider  that  most  epileptics,  during  the  first 
few  years,  continue  their  customary  employments,  and 
to  the  world  at  large  seem  to  have  suffered  no  mental 
deterioration.  Indeed,  they  are  seldom  the  subjects  of 
any  medical  observation  at  all.  It  is  not,  generally,  until 
the  mental  powers  have  become  very  obviously  impaired 
that  they  find  their  way  into  a  hospital,  where  their 
mental  condition  is  closely  observed.  What  we  need, 
above  all  things  else,  in  the  medical  history  of  this  disease, 
is  more  information  respecting  that  general  impairment 
of  the  mind  which,  sooner  or  later,  in  a  greater  or  less 
degree,  is  sure  to  follow.  The  frequency  of  the  disease 
makes  its  medico-legal  relations  a  subject  of  the  highest 
importance,  for  the  trials  in  which  it  will  be  offered  in 
defence  of  criminal  acts  will  be  steadily  increasing  in 
number.  The  older  medical  jurists  were  disposed  to 
make  its  exculpatory  effects  a  matter  of  time,  and  sought 
for  an  arbitrary  period  before  and  after  the  fit  within 
which  they  should  be  confined.  We  know  enough  more 
of  epilepsy  than  they  did  to  be  sure  that  such  views 
are  too  narrow,  though  quite  unable,  certainly,  to  say 
precisely  in  what  degree.     The  more  conversant  we 


280  TULAL   OF   WINNEMORE. 

become  with  epilepsy,  the  more  strongly  is  the  convic- 
tion forced  upon  us  that  its  damaging  effect  upon  the 
mind  begins  at  an  earlier  period  than  that  usually  as- 
signed, and  that  some  of  the  phases  of  this  process  are 
as  yet  imperfectly  understood,  even  when  recognized 
at  all.  There  is  reason  to  believe  that  some  epileptics 
lose  their  proper  consciousness  occasionally,  even  when 
not  under  the  immediate  influence  of  a  fit.  In  what 
proportion  of  cases  this  may  occur,  how  often  it  may 
appear  and  how  long  it  may  last,  —  these  are  questions 
for  future  inquirers  to  answer.  It  is  our  duty,  however, 
to  see  that  the  general  fact,  imperfectly  as  it  is  under- 
stood, should  have  its  legitimate  influence  on  judicial 
decisions.  The  excessive  susceptibility  of  epileptics  to 
nervous  impressions,  which  become  distorted  if  not 
utterly  changed  on  their  way  to  the  sensorium,  is  a 
phenomenon  not  clearly  recognized  by  the  profession  at 
large,  although  it  cannot  have  failed  to  meet  the  atten- 
tion of  the  close  observer.  In  medico-legal  inquiries  it 
should  never  be  ignored  or  forgotten ;  for  it  may  be  the 
very  phase  of  mental  disturbance  which  prompted  the 
criminal  act.  Let  it  not  be  objected  that  these  are  dan- 
gerous innovations,  because  such  a  thing  ought  not  to 
be  said  of  any  scientific  conclusion,  honestly  and  intelli- 
gently reached.  The  distrust  naturally  felt  towards  any 
considerable  advance  upon  existing  views  is  no  proof 
against  it  with  any  well-disciplined  mind ;  and  no  class 
of  persons  has  had  better  evidence  of  the  fact  than  that 
which  is  engaged  in  the  study  of  insanity  and  the  insane. 
It  is  not  long  since  it  was  proclaimed,  from  many  a  high 
place  in  the  world,  that  to  make  any  other  form  of  insan- 
ity than  idiocy  and  raving  mania  an  excuse  for  crime  is 
a  dangerous  innovation,  to  be  frowned  upon  by  every 
friend  of  public  order. 


TRIAL   OF    YVIXXEMORE.  281 

In  view  of  what  we  already  know  of  epilepsy  and  of 
what  still  remains  to  be  learned,  we  have  a  right  to 
require  the  utmost  circumspection  and  the  closest  inves- 
tigation whenever  the  legal  liabilities  of  epileptics  are 
in  question.  The  fact  of  its  existence  being  established, 
is  it  going  too  far  to  say  that  legal  responsibility  is  pre- 
sumptively annulled,  and  that  the  burden  of  proof  lies 
on  the  party  that  alleges  the  contrary  ?  People  are 
scarcely  ready  for  it  yet,  perhaps,  but  to  that  complexion 
must  they  come  at  last. 


THE    INSANITY  OF  SEDUCED  OR  DESERTED 
WOMEN. 


The  acquittal  of  Mary  Harris,  lately  tried  in  Washing- 
ton, has  greatly  exercised  the  public  mind,  and  given 
rise  to  an  unusual  amount  of  objurgation.  And  the 
leading  facts  of  the  case,  superficially  considered, 
seemed  to  warrant  this  state  of  feeling.  A  young 
woman,  smarting  under  the  loss  of  her  lover,  provides 
herself  with  weapons,  travels  hundreds  of  miles  to  find 
him,  watches  patiently  for  a  suitable  opportunity,  and 
at  last  deliberately  shoots  him  dead  at  his  desk  in  a 
Government  office.  She  is  then  tried,  with  the  sym- 
pathies of  the  court,  jury,  and  audience  all  in  her  favor, 
acquitted  on  the  plea  of  insanity,  under  a  more  liberal 
rule  of  law  on  this  subject  than  was  ever  admitted 
before  in  any  English  or  American  court,  and  imme- 
diately, without  the  slightest  let  or  hindrance,  is  set  at 
large.  Thus  regarded,  and  in  that  aspect  alone  has  it 
been  regarded  by  most  persons,  the  result  seems  to 
have  been  but  a  mockery  of  justice,  worthy  of  the 
severest  condemnation.  But,  for  all  that,  the  girl  may 
have  been  insane,  and  therefore  very  properly  acquit- 
ted ;  for  there  was  nothing  in  the  case  incompatible 
with  the  phenomena  of  insanity.  Among  the  medical 
witnesses  who   thought   her   insane    was   Dr.  Nichols, 


IXSAXITY   OF    DESERTED    WOMEN.  283 

Superintendent  of  the  Government  Hospital  for  the 
insane,  who,  for  more  than  twenty  years,  has  been  ex- 
clusively engaged  in  the  care  of  the  insane,  and  is  well 
fitted,  both  by  his  mental  qualities  and  his  abundant 
experience,  to  pronounce  an  opinion  on  such  a  case  ; 
and  it  is  not  strange  that  the  jury  shrunk  from  a  con- 
viction in  the  face  of  his  testimony. 

It  is  no  part  of  my  present  purpose  to  discuss  the 
question  of  this  woman's  insanity ;  and  I  shall  there- 
fore say  but  little  more  about  it  than  to  express  the 
conviction  that  the  existence  of  the  disease,  when  she 
committed  the  homicide,  was  satisfactorily  proved. 
The  evidence  of  the  fact  was  more  full  and  decisive 
than  it  usually  is  in  cases  of  such  a  character,  or  of  any 
character  in  which  the  marks  of  the  disease  are  not 
obvious  to  the  most  superficial  observer.  The  essential 
features  of  the  disease  were  there,  easily  discerned  by 
all  who  were  willing  to  see  them.  The  heaviest  blow 
that  a  proud  and  sensitive  woman  could  receive  sud- 
denly fell  upon  her,  and  reason  reeled  under  the  shock. 
A  change  of  character  took  place,  in  which  strange 
moods  of  mind,  marked  sometimes  by  depression  and 
sometimes  by  excitement,  were  frequently  exhibited. 
Acts,  sometimes  of  petty  mischief,  sometimes  of  fearful 
violence,  towards  those  she  had  most  reason  to  love, 
astonished  and  alarmed  her  friends.  These  effects  of 
the  moral  shock  were  intensified  by  a  considerable 
degree  of  uterine  derangement,  and  rendered  somewhat 
periodical  and  paroxysmal  in  their  manifestations.  Her 
mind  thus  unsettled,  and  drifting  about  under  the  in- 
fluence of  every  morbid  feeling,  was  finally  led  to  con- 
template the  idea  of  murder,  and,  after  accomplishing 
the  act,  to  regard  her  conduct  with  no  very  definite 
sentiment  of  joy  or  of  sorrow,  —  with  no  realizing  sense 


284  INSANITY   OF   DESEETED    WOMEN. 

of  the  enormity  of  her  crime,  or  of  its  legal  consequences 
to  herself. 

The  psychological  and  pathological  aspects  of  the 
case  were  presented  by  Dr.  Nichols  with  a  force  and 
clearness  seldom  exhibited  on  the  witness-stand,  and 
evincing  a  profound  and  sagacious  observation  of  mental 
phenomena  resulting  from  disease.  Altogether,  the  case 
is  full  of  instruction,  and  deserves  to  be  carefully  pon- 
dered by  all  who  are  engaged  in  psychological  studies. 

In  any  notice  of  this  case,  one  is  bound  in  duty  to 
speak  in  terms  of  the  severest  reprobation  of  the  closing 
scene  of  a  trial  that  abounded  in  discreditable  incidents. 
As  soon  as  the  verdict  was  announced,  without  one 
murmur  of  disapprobation,  the  prisoner  was  set  at 
large.  The  evidence  of  the  experts,  on  which  the 
verdict  must  have  been  founded,  implied  that  she  was 
insane,  not  only  when  she  committed  the  homicide,  but 
also  at  the  time  of  their  examination,  which  was  shortly 
before  the  trial.  It  was  not  pretended  that  she  had 
recovered.  Indeed,  such  an  admission  might  have  been 
fatal  to  the  defence.  And  thus  a  woman,  having  com- 
mitted a  capital  crime  under  the  influence  of  insanity, 
is  again  let  loose  upon  the  community,  to  repeat  the 
act  whenever  an  occasion  may  be  offered.  It  is  to  be 
presumed  that  no  law  of  the  district  would  have  author- 
ized her  detention  ;  though,  in  the  face  of  so  many  ir- 
regularities that  marked  the  course  of  the  trial,  we  are 
not  sure  on  this  point.  If  such  is  the  fact,  however,  it 
is  to  be  hoped  that  Congress  will  not  suffer  another 
winter  to  go  by  without  providing  by  law,  as  many 
States  already  have,  that  every  person  acquitted  on 
trial  for  a  criminal  act  on  the  ground  of  insanity  shall 
be  remanded  to  custody,  and  not  be  relieved  therefrom 
until  fully  recovered. 


INSANITY   OF    DESERTED    WOMEN.  285 

As  already  stated,  it  is  not  my  purpose  to  discuss 
the  points  of  this  case,  but  rather  to  call  attention  to 
a  class  of  cases  of  which  this  may  be  considered  as 
a  fair  representative.  They  are  greatly  misunderstood, 
for  the  double  reason  that  the  mental  impairment 
alleged  to  exist  is  not  readily  discerned,  and  that  the 
offence  is  committed  under  the  ordinary  provocatives 
to  crime.  And  the  misunderstanding  is  not  confined 
to  the  unprofessional  public ;  but  medical  men  are 
found,  and  among  them  even  some  practically  conver- 
sant with  mental  disease,  who  can  see  in  the  plea  of 
moral  insanity  only  a  lawyer's  dodge,  aided  by  the 
easy  subservience  of  crotchety   doctors. 

Differing  as  these  cases  do  in  some  respects,  yet  they 
have  many  features  in  common  which  establish  their 
essential  identity.  In  all,  there  has  been  a  grievous 
disappointment  or  outrage,  more  calculated  than  all 
others  to  try  a  woman's  temper,  and  disturb  the  healthy 
balance  of  her  mind.  In  all,  there  has  been  a  strong 
and  sudden  revulsion  of  feeling,  in  which  love  and 
confidence  were  succeeded  by  the  deadliest  hate.  In 
all,  there  has  been  more  or  less  mental  disturbance 
exhibited,  not  so  much  in  the  form  of  delusion  as  in  that 
of  paroxysmal  fury  and  uncontrollable  criminal  impulse. 
In  all,  there  has  been  an  entire  abandonment  of  every 
interest  and  feeling  not  connected  with  the  single  pur- 
pose of  revenge.  In  all,  the  person  gives  herself  up 
to  justice,  glories  in  the  bloody  deed,  and  is  careless  of 
the   future. 

In  the  condition  thus  indicated,  the  thoughtful  in- 
quirer cannot  fail  to  perceive  the  peculiar  influence 
of  those  organs  which  play  so  large  a  part  in  the  female 
economy  ;  and  this  fact  must  be  duly  pondered  if  we 
would  avoid  serious  mistake  as  to  the  true  character  of 


286  INSANITY   OF   DESERTED    WOMEN. 

the  mental  disturbance.  An  act  not  to  be  distinguished, 
perhaps,  on  a  casual  inspection,  from  the  ordinary  run 
of  crimes,  may,  nevertheless,  have  been  prompted  more 
by  those  physiological  movements  characteristic  of  the 
female  constitution,  than  by  well-considered  motives,  or 
strong,  healthy  feeling.  With  women  it  is  but  a  step 
from  extreme  nervous  susceptibility  to  downright  hys- 
teria, and  from  that  to  overt  insanity.  In  the  sexual 
evolution,  in  pregnancy,  in  the  parturient  period,  in 
lactation,  strange  thoughts,  extraordinary  feelings,  un- 
seasonable appetites,  criminal  impulses,  may  haunt  a 
mind  at  other  times  innocent  and  pure.  Dr.  William 
Hunter,  who  certainly  was  neither  superficial  nor  crot- 
chety, contended  that  young,  unmarried  women,  guilty 
of  killing  their  new-born  offspring,  are  so  distracted  by 
conflicting  feelings,  sharpened  to  morbid  acuteness  by 
the  great  physiological  movement  of  parturition,  as 
to  be  hardly  responsible  for  their  acts.1  Some  dozen 
or  fifteen  years  ago,  a  young  woman,  on  one  of  the 
steamers  running  between  New  York  and  Fall  River, 
gave  birth  to  a  child,  and  immediately  threw  it  into  the 
sea.  At  first  she  denied  the  act,  but  seemed  to  manifest 
some  bewilderment  of  mind.  Not  much  was  known  of 
her  history.  The  case  was  tried  before  the  late  Judge 
Story,  who,  if  he  had  been  guided  by  the  rules  of  law, 
rather  than  the  instincts  of  his  kind  and  generous 
nature,  would  have  favored  her  conviction  ;  but,  on  the 
contrary,  as  if  sharing  the  humane  sentiments  and  in- 
telligent views  of  Hunter,  he  gave  the  jury  to  under- 
stand that  the  ends  of  justice  would  be  best  promoted 
by  her  acquittal,  and  the  jury  followed  his  advice.2 

1  Medical   Observations   and  Inquiries,  by  a  Society  of  Physicians  in 
London,  vi.  266. 

2  In  the  course  of  the  discussion  that  followed   the  reading  of  this 


INSANITY   OF   DESERTED    WOMEN.  287 

It  is  no  mark  of  wisdom  to  ignore  the  presence  of  the 
sexual  element  in  the  phenomena  displayed  by  this 
class  of  cases.  It  is  no  whim,  but  a  suggestion  of  sound 
physiology,  that  the  nervous  erethism,  excited  even  by 
courtship,  has  a  controlling  influence  over  the  female 
will. 

Among  the  circumstances  above  mentioned  we  have 
two  very  efficient  agencies  in  the  production  of  insanity, 
—  a  strong  moral  shock  and  an  irritable  condition  of 
the  nervous  system.  Is  it  strange  that  a  person  thus 
situated  should  become  insane  ?  It  would  be  strange, 
indeed,  if  this  event  did  not  occasionally  happen. 

The  common  reluctance  to  attribute  insanity  to  this 
class  of  persons  arises  principally,  no  doubt,  from  the 
fact  that  they  act  from  a  rational  motive, —  from  that 
prolific  parent  of  crime,  revenge.  That  this  should  be 
considered  incompatible  with  insanity  only  indicates 
how  imperfect  are  the  prevalent  notions  respecting  this 
disease.  It  needs  but  little  observation  of  the  insane 
to  see  that  they  often  act  from  rational  motives.  Strike 
an  insane  man,  and  he  will  be  very  likely  to  strike  back. 
Promise  him  a  reward  for  good  behavior,  and  he  will 
probably  endeavor  to  earn  it.     Put  him  upon  his  honor, 

paper  to  the  Association  of  Superintendents  of  Hospitals  for  the  Insane, 
Dr.  Walker,  Superintendent  of  the  South  Boston  Hospital,  related  a 
case  strongly  illustrative  of  the  intimate  sympathy  between  the  uterine 
and  cerebral  systems.  While  on  his  way  to  the  meeting,  by  one  of  the 
Sound  boats,  his  attention  was  called  to  a  young  woman  of  delicate  con- 
stitution, who  had  some  uterine  ailments.  The  bedding  being  cold  and 
damp  provoked  an  unusually  severe  attack  of  these  ailments,  so  that 
"  for  half  an  hour,"  the  doctor  said,  "  she  was  a  complete  maniac.  She 
did  not  know  what  she  said  or  did.  If  she  had  been  alone  she  might 
have  thrown  herself  overboard,  or  have  done  herself  any  injury  what- 
ever, and  in  my  judgment  no  responsibility  would  have  attached  to  the 
act."  In  the  course  of  three  hours  the  paroxysm  passed  off,  and  the 
mind  cleared  up. 


288  INSANITY   OF   DESERTED   WOMEN. 

and  he  will  be  likely  to  keep  his  word.  Do  him  a 
grievous  wrong,  and  he  will  remember  it  and  retaliate, 
perhaps  at  some  distant  day.  And  when  a  man  has  been 
made  insane,  ostensibly  by  insult  and  abuse,  the  disease 
is  not  calculated  to  soften  his  feelings  towards  the  of- 
fender, unless  it  crushes  them  altogether,  or  to  deter  him 
from  inflicting  punishment.  It  may  be  disproportionate 
and  cruel,  and  therein  consists  the  manifestation  of  dis- 
ease. Insanity  may  lead  a  man  to  regard  his  friends  as 
no  better  than  enemies  ;  but  it  seldom  leads  him  to  con- 
sider his  enemies  as  friends,  and  treat  them  accordingly. 
The  common  sentiment  respecting  this  class  of  cases 
was  expressed  by  Erskine  in  his  admirable  defence  of 
Hadfield,  while  discussing  the  doctrine,  which  subse- 
quently became  an  authoritative  rule  of  law,  that  delu- 
sion constitutes  the  criterion  of  that  form  of  insanity 
which  renders  a  person  irreponsible  for  criminal  acts. 
A  woman,  he  said,  had  been  recently  tried  for  killing 
the  man  who,  after  cohabiting  with  her  several  years, 
utterly  cast  her  off;  and  inasmuch  as  she  acted  from  the 
spur  of  a  real  and  not  an  imaginary  grievance,  he  thought 
she  should  have  been  convicted.  But,  as  if  his  instincts 
were  a  safer  guide  than  any  rule  of  law,  he  said  it  must 
be  a  consolation  to  those  who  prosecuted  her  that  she 
was  acquitted,  because  she  was  then  "  in  a  most  un- 
doubted and  deplorable  state  of  insanity."  And  gener- 
ally, if  not  always,  such  must  be  the  practical  result. 
The  testimony  shows  neither  delusion  nor  hallucination; 
neither  incoherence  nor  incongruity  ;  the  experts  render 
a  hesitating,  indecisive  opinion  ;  the  public  sentiment, 
completely  dazed  by  the  coolness  and  contrivance  which 
marked  the  murderous  act,  scouts  at  the  idea  of  insanity. 
The  jury,  however,  in  that  tale  of  outrage  and  affliction, 
related  with  all  the  force  and   distinctness  peculiar  to 


INSANITY   OF   DESERTED    WOMEN.  ^89 

legal  evidence,  cannot  help  seeing  the  rise  and  progress 
of  a  mental  distraction,  call  it  by  whatever  name  you 
please,  in  which  the  sense  of  the  right  and  the  good  is 
overwhelmed  or  distorted,  and  the  spirit  of  revenge 
seeks  for  its  victim,  as  if  moved  by  an  automatic  and 
irresistible  impulse.  The  verdict  of  acquittal  is  not 
the  fruit  of  a  morbid  sentimentalism,  or  of  a  fashionable 
indulgence  to  crime,  but  of  a  true  humanity  enlightened 
by  true  science.  Let  those  who  suppose  that  such  ver- 
dicts are  rendered  only  in  this  country  and  at  this  time 
consider  that  the  case  alluded  to  above  occurred  in 
England  more  than  sixty  years  ago,  —  a  period  when 
English  juries  were  not  supposed  to  be  influenced  by 
any  superfluous  leniency  to  crime. 

What  we  are  greatly  in  need  of  now  is  a  collection 
of  these  cases,  accurately  reported ;  and  one  could 
hardly  do  a  better  service  for  medical  jurisprudence 
than  to  supply  this  deficiency.  One  of  them  came 
under  the  writer's  notice  with  such  unusual  opportu- 
nities for  observation  as  to  render  it  worthy  of  a  place 
in  such  a  collection. 

An  Irish  girl,  about  twenty  years  old,  handsome  and 
high-spirited,  while  living  at  service  in  the  family  of 
an  eminent  lawyer  in  ProvideDce,  became  acquainted 
with  a  young  man,  an  American,  who,  as  she  said,  prom- 
ised to  marry  her.  One  evening  he  got  her  on  board 
the  steam-boat  in  which  he  was  employed,  and  there 
treacherously  attempted,  though  without  success,  to 
violate  her  person.  From  that  time  forth  all  communi- 
cation between  them  ceased,  her  love  was  turned  into 
hate,  and  she  determined  to  have  revenge.  She  pro- 
cured a  knife,  and  at  every  opportunity  sought  him  in 
his  accustomed  haunts,  all  the  while  performing  her 
duties  properly,  and  attracting  no  attention  by  her  man- 

19 


290  INSANITY   OF   DESERTED   WOMEN. 

ner  or  discourse.  In  the  course  of  a  few  weeks  she  met 
the  false  lover  in  the  street,  and  plunged  the  knife  in  his 
bosom.  She  went  home  quietly,  where  she  was  arrested 
next  day,  and  thence  sent  to  jail.  The  wound  was 
severe  ;  but  the  man  finally  recovered,  though  for  a  time 
it  was  thought  he  would  die. 

While  she  was  in  jail,  the  writer  was  requested  by 
her  counsel  to  visit  her,  for  the  purpose  of  ascertaining 
her  mental  condition.  The  warden  said  she  had  been 
an  exceedingly  troublesome  subject  ;  that  she  often 
got  terribly  ugly,  when  she  would  curse  and  swear, 
break  whatever  was  breakable  in  her  room,  and  destroy 
her  clothing,  and  that  consequently  he  was  obliged  to 
keep  her  very  close.  During  our  interview  she  was 
calm,  good-natured,  and  communicative.  When  asked 
about  the  fits  of  passion  spoken  of  by  the  warden,  she 
said  the  other  women  provoked  her,  and  then  she  could 
not  help  getting  mad.  She  conversed  correctly  enough 
on  ordinary  topics,  showing  a  mind  rather  bright,  though 
uncultivated ;  but  when  the  assault  was  referred  to,  she 
became  grave,  shed  tears,  and  broke  out  into  some  pas- 
sionate expressions.  The  night  before  her  trial  she 
made  an  attempt  at  suicide,  and  came  very  near  suc- 
ceeding. At  the  trial  all  went  smoothly  until  the  young 
man  was  put  upon  the  witness-stand.  The  moment  she 
caught  sight  of  him,  and  before  he  had  spoken  a  word, 
she  began  to  pour  out  a  torrent  of  vituperation  which 
no  efforts  of  her  counsel  or  her  female  attendants  could 
stop.  As  this  was  uttered  at  the  top  of  her  voice,  the 
confusion  and  embarrassment  that  ensued  can  be  better 
imagined  than  described.  To  go  on  with  the  trial  was 
impossible,  and  the  court  directed  the  officer  to  take 
her  to  the  hospital. 

For  a  few  days  after  her  admission  she  was  tolerably 


INSANITY   OF  DESERTED   WOMEX.  291 

calm,  but  protested  against  being  confined  as  a  lunatic, 
and  demanded  that  she  should  be  sent  back  to  jail.  She 
was  willing  to  be  tried,  she  said,  and  to  be  punished  if 
she  had  done  wrong,  but  they  must  not  suffer  that  man 
to  come  in  sight.  In  this  style  she  talked  to  the  last,  and 
no  person  in  the  house  disclaimed  the  imputation  of  in- 
sanity more  loudly  than  she.  It  was  not  long  before  she 
had  a  paroxysm  like  those  the  jailer  described,  and  for 
several  months  they  recurred  once  in  two  or  three 
weeks.  With  little  or  no  provocation  she  began  to 
scold  and  curse,  vociferating  with  all  her  might,  and 
tearing  off  her  clothes.  This  continued  two  or  three 
days,  when  she  became  calm,  regretted  what  she  had 
done,  and  promised  to  be  good.  But  even  during  her 
quiet  intervals  she  was  more  or  less  cross,  querulous, 
and  quarrelsome.  Collisions  with  the  attendants  and 
patients  were  of  frequent  occurrence,  and  all  rules  and 
regulations  she  utterly  contemned.  Several  benevolent 
ladies  who  had  visited  her  in  jail  called  to  see  her,  but 
she  was  always  averse  to  seeing  them,  and  finally  re- 
fused altogether,  for  she  said  she  wanted  neither  their 
help  nor  their  sympathies,  —  she  could  take  care  of 
herself.  During  the  last  few  months  of  her  stay  the 
paroxysms  became  less  frequent,  and  the  intervals  ex- 
hibited a  more  comfortable  frame  of  mind.  But  from  first 
to  last  she  declared  she  had  no  regret  for  what  she  had 
done,  that  she  had  a  right  to  do  it,  and  was  determined 
to  kill  him  if  he  ever  came  in  her  way.  After  staying 
eighteen  months  in  the  hospital,  she  was  discharged  by 
order  of  the  Attorney-General,  and  went  to  reside  with 
some  friends  at  the  South. 

The  psychological  experience  of  this  poor  girl  —  the 
successive  steps  that  intervened  between  the  first  shock 
to  her  feelings  occasioned  by  her  lover's  treachery  and 


292  INSANITY  OF  DESERTED   WOMEN. 

the  state  of  raving  mania  in  which  it  culminated  —  it  is 
not  very  difficult  to  understand.  In  the  course  of  a  few- 
hours,  undoubtedly,  her  love  was  succeeded  by  hate  and 
resentment.  With  her  whole  heart  and  soul  absorbed 
in  a  sense  of  the  wrong  she  had  suffered,  burning  with 
shame  at  the  indignity  with  which  her  warm,  trusting 
attachment  had  been  repaid,  and  ever  dwelling  on  this 
one  idea,  these  feelings  became  intensified  every  day 
she  lived.  The  shrinking  delicacy  of  the  female  char- 
acter, the  sense  of  right  and  wrong,  the  fear  of  man 
and  the  fear  of  God,  all  disappeared,  utterly  extin- 
guished by  the  immovable  determination  to  be  re- 
venged. With  the  accomplishment  of  her  purpose,  it 
might  be  supposed  that  she  would  regain  her  ordinary 
tone  of  feeling  ;  but  after  such  extreme  tension  the 
proper  elasticity  of  the  mind  is  not  easily  recovered, 
and  often  it  is  hopelessly  lost.  The  nervous  excitement, 
instead  of  passing  quietly  away,  like  the  electric  fluid, 
at  numerous  points,  could  find  escape  only  in  successive 
explosions  of  fury.  In  this  state  of  mind  it  is  not 
strange  that  her  moral  perceptions  were  blunted  ;  that 
wrong  seemed  to  her  right,  and  a  murderous  assault 
justifiable.  In  all  this  it  is  easy  to  see  the  strict  rela- 
tions that  existed  between  the  normal  and  the  abnormal 
manifestations  of  her  character,  between  the  essential 
and  the  accidental  incidents  that  marked  the  development 
of  the  mental  affection.  Had  she  been  a  girl  of  a  higher 
grade  of  culture,  or  blessed  with  a  larger  religious 
element  in  her  education,  she  might  have  borne  her 
wrongs  in  a  submissive,  Christian  spirit.  Had  she 
been  endowed  with  a  less  irritable,  nervous  tempera- 
ment, she  might  have  maintained  her  equanimity,  and, 
severely  as  she  may  have  felt  her  wrongs,  still  re- 
strained her  thirst  for  revenge  within  the  limits  of  the 


INSANITY   OF  DESERTED   WOMEN.  293 

law.  Had  the  offender  gone  away  far  out  of  her  reach, 
the  tumult  of  her  feelings  might  have  gradually  sub- 
sided, and  her  ordinary  serenity  been  regained.  But 
constituted  as  she  was,  controlled  by  circumstances 
as  she  was,  disappointment,  shame,  and  outrage  could 
be  followed  by  only  the  saddest  possible  consequences. 


THE  HINCHMAN  CASE. 


[The  following  case  presents  an  extraordinary  instance  of  the 
triumph  of  popular  passion  over  justice,  reason,  character,  and  com- 
mon sense ;  and  it  is  interesting  now,  not  so  much  on  account  of  any- 
unusual  phase  of  mental  disease,  or  of  any  new  principle  of  law 
involved  in  it,  as  of  the  fearful  amount  of  injustice  that  may  be  com- 
mitted under  the  forms  of  a  judicial  process.  When  reading  the  nar- 
rative of  a  star  chamber  trial,  there  is  apt  to  be  mingled  with  the 
feeling  of  wrath  and  indignation  provoked  by  it  a  comforting  sense 
of  security  against  any  renewal  of  such  performances.  With  a  child- 
like reliance  on  the  aid  of  counsel,  the  independence  of  juries,  and 
the  integrity  of  courts,  people  who  derive  their  notions  from  books 
fondly  imagine  that  they  are  no  longer  possible.  The  pleasing 
thought  must  vanish  before  such  a  case  as  Hinchman's  ;  for,  though  the 
government  is  shorn  of  its  influence,  yet  a  power  mightier  than  the 
government,  and  unchecked  by  scruples,  is  ever  ready  to  shape 
the  conclusions  of  a  jury  trial. 

The  practical  effect  of  this  case  is  mischievous  beyond  measure. 
It  must  lead  every  one  with  the  least  degree  of  salutary  prudence  in 
his  nature  to  shrink  from  an  act  of  duty  or  neighborly  kindness,  ex- 
posing him  as  it  might  to  popular  odium  and  pecuniary  ruin.  So 
long  as  it  is  held  to  exemplify  a  correct  operation  of  law,  who  will 
venture  to  lay  his  hands  upon  a  maniac,  though  destroying  the 
peace,  perhaps  threatening  the  lives  of  those  around  him?  The 
judge  said  that  such  interference  might  spring  from  mercenary  motives, 
and  if  the  jury  should  find  that  to  be  the  fact  they  were  bound  to 
convict,  notwithstanding  the  acknowledged  benefit  that  was  derived 
from  it.  We  would  like  to  believe  that  this  is  an  exceptional  case 
arising  from  a  fortuitous  concourse  of  adverse  circumstances  not  likely 
to  happen  again.   So  long  as  the  action  of  conspiracy  is  recognized  by 


THE   HINCHMAN   CASE.  295 

our  courts,  we  have  reason  to  expect  its  repetition  ;  for  the  same  ele- 
ments might  be  there,  and  as  potent  as  ever.  We  might  have  the 
same  artful  appeals  to  the  passions  of  the  jury,  the  same  manipulation 
of  their  opinions  outside  of  the  court-room,  the  same  timidity  and 
vacillation  of  the  court,  the  same  disregard  of  truth  on  the  part  of  wit- 
nesses. One  must  have  been  a  dull  observer  of  the  times  to  sup- 
pose that  a  concurrence  of  all  these  things  would  be  a  very  improbable 
event. 

The  point  to  which  I  would  call  particular  attention  is,  that  Hinch- 
man  represents  a  class  of  cases  grossly  misunderstood,  and  conse- 
quently giving  rise  to  much  injustice.  Unfortunately,  insanity  is  one 
of  those  subjects  of  which  everybody  knows,  or  thinks  he  knows, 
something;  and,  in  accordance  with  a  common  tendency  of  the  mind, 
people  readily  imbibe  the  notion  that,  beyond  their  little  attainments, 
nothing  more  is  possible  to  be  known.  And  when  this  notion  is  enter- 
tained, as  it  generally  is,  with  some  pride  of  opinion  or  strength  of 
prejudice,  it  bids  defiance  to  every  attempt  to  eradicate  it.  Many  a 
man  will  admit  in  general  terms  that  insanity  is  an  object  of  scientific  in- 
vestigation conducted  according  to  the  strictest  rules  of  philosophizing, 
with  abundance  of  materials  at  command,  who,  when  it  comes  to  a 
case  in  hand,  though  he  may  not  have  observed  a  half  dozen  insane 
persons  in  his  life,  and  pretends  to  no  scientific  culture  of  any  kind, 
will  scout  at  the  idea  of  yielding  his  own  opinion  to  the  authority  of 
the  Esquirols  and  Conollys  of  the  time.  Daily  experience  teaches 
that  it  is  often  easier  to  enlighten  a  man  profoundly  and  confessedly 
ignorant  than  one  who  knows  a  little.  This  explains  the  difficulty 
of  convincing  people  that  a  man  apparently  sane  may  be  actually 
insane.  If  it  were  a  matter  of  navigation,  or  mechanics,  or  any 
other  subject  to  which  they  had  never  given  a  thought,  nothing  would 
be  farther  from  them  than  to  presume  to  have  an  opinion  of  their  own. 
And  yet  who  will  estimate  the  range  of  observation,  the  keenness  of 
perception,  the  careful  deduction,  the  acquaintance  with  mental  mani- 
festations, sane  and  insane,  which  are  required  to  decide  correctly  in 
an  obscure  case  of  insanity ! 

Insanity  is  a  disease  from  which,  frequently,  the  patient  completely 
recovers,  having  relinquished  all  his  delusions  and  fancies,  regarding 
his  thoughts  and  actions  in  their  true  light,  and  contemplating  all  his 
relations  to  others  as  he  did  while  confessedly  sound.  On  the  other 
hand,  there  is  a  proportion  of  cases  in  which  recovery  is  not  so  com- 
plete. All  the  prominent  delusions  may  have  disappeared,  the  conduct 
may    be    conformed    to    the    ordinary   rules  of  propriety,    the    dis- 


296  THE   HINCHMAN   CASE. 

course  may  be  coherent  and  even  shrewd,  and  to  any  casual  obser- 
vation the  patient  may  appear  to  be,  as  the  phrase  is,  all  right,  and 
yet  all  the  while  many  of  the  morbid  notions  that  sprung  from  the 
disease  still  linger  in  his  mind.  Though  aware  that  he  was  under  a 
cloud,  he  cannot  believe  that  he  was  really  insane  ;  he  thinks  his  friends 
acted  maliciously  in  putting  him  under  restraint ;  is  utterly  insensi- 
ble to  the  suggestions  of  affection,  of  reason,  and  of  common  sense ; 
takes  counsel  of  mischief-making  advisers,  and  finally  devotes  his 
time  and  his  means  to  the  work  of  harassing  his  own  flesh  and  blood 
in  vindictive  suits  at  law.  The  friends,  to  avoid  exposure  of  his  in- 
firmities and  keep  their  private  griefs  from  the  public  gaze,  may  offer 
little  or  no  resistance  to  his  legal  measures  ;  the  law  gives  him  what- 
ever he  asks  for;  the  case  goes  forth  to  the  world  as  another  "unpar- 
alleled outrage,"  and  is  made  the  text  of  many  a  diatribe  against 
physicians  guilty  of  the  presumption  of  signing  a  certificate  of  insan- 
ity. It  is  to  the  impression  made  by  this  class  of  cases  that  we  are 
to  attribute  a  very  prevalent  belief  that  sane  persons  are  often  confined 
in  our  hospitals  for  the  insane  by  the  aid  of  medical  men,  induced  by 
some  corrupt  motive  to  participate  in  the  crime,  and  abetted  therein 
by  the  officers  and  directors  of  these  institutions.  The  world  is  reluc- 
tant to  believe  that  facts  so  clearly  and  circumstantially  related  and 
stories  so  plausibly  told  are  solely  the  offspring  of  an  insanity  that 
gives  no  other  indication  of  its  presence.  It  is  because  the  world  is 
generally  ignorant  respecting  a  very  common  trait  of  this  disease. 
In  a  large  proportion  of  cases  it  is  attended  by  more  or  less  moral 
obliquity,  by  reason  of  which  the  normal  relations  of  good  and  evil 
are  so  distorted  as  sometimes  to  be  completely  inverted.  In  this 
demoralization  we  seldom  fail  to  witness  a  remarkable  disregard  of 
truth.  Whether  the  disease  has  so  obscured  their  perceptions  as  to 
render  them  unable  to  distinguish  between  the  real  and  imaginary, 
or  whether,  perceiving  correctly  enough,  they  wilfully  choose  the 
false  rather  than  the  true,  is  not  always  apparent.  Sometimes  it  is 
one  and  sometimes  the  other,  and  not  unfrequently,  perhaps,  both 
have  a  share  in  producing  this  trait.  However  this  may  be,  it  is 
certain  that  among  the  lingering  traces  of  their  disease  exhibited 
by  many  of  the  partially  recovered  is  a  mendacity  so  audacious 
as  to  defy  all  conception,  except  with  those  who  have  had  a  long  pro- 
fessional acquaintance  with  mental  derangement.  And  even  they 
are  sometimes  misled  by  that  cunning  which  is  another  element  of 
the  moral  perversity  engendered  by  insanity.  In  view  of  these  facts, 
it  is  not  strange  that  these  persons  make  an  impression  upon  people 


THE    HINCHMAN    CASE.  297 

of  culture  and  reflection,  scarcely  less  strong  than  upon  the  ignorant 
and  thoughtless.  The  number  of  those  who  are  governed  as  to  what 
they  believe  by  the  most  elementary  laws  of  evidence  is  extremely 
small,  and  that  knowledge  of  insanity  which  would  furnish  a  clew  to 
the  true  character  of  the  revelations  they  hear  is  confined  to  a  still 
smaller  number. 

The  incompleteness  of  recovery  just  mentioned  is  not  confined  to 
insanity.  It  may  be  witnessed  after  an  attack  of  almost  every  other 
disease.  For  a  period,  longer  or  shorter,  morbid  action  in  any  organ 
may  leave  it  in  a  weak,  irritable  condition;  while  the  patient  may 
have  resumed  his  customary  duties,  and  appeared  to  his  friends  to 
have  fully  regained  his  health.  The  trouble  will  be  manifested  by 
some  slight  pain  or  uneasiness  in  the  part  affected,  some  irregularity 
in  its  action,  some  imperfection  in  its  performance,  some  loss  of  its 
power  of  endurance.  These  conditions  either  disappear  after  awhile, 
or  they  may  continue  with  more  or  less  severity,  until  succeeded  by 
another  attack  of  the  original  disease.  To  expect  the  mind  imme- 
diately after  an  attack  of  insanity  to  beTs  clear,  as  bright,  and  as 
'strong  as  ever,  and  as  free  from  all  hitch  and  obliquity  in  its  move- 
ments, would  be  as  unreasonable   as  to  suppose  that  the  lungs,  or 

^-     p__ r  . 

stomach,  or  liver,  just  after  recovering  from  an  acute  inflammation, 

would  perforin  its  functions  without  a  single  trace  of  the  disease 
which  so  thoroughly  deranged  its  action.1] 

Ox  the  12th  of  March  last,  before  Judge  Burnside, 
one  of  the  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Pennsylvania, 
sitting  at  Nisi  Prius,  in  Philadelphia,  began  the  trial 
of  the  cause  of  Morgan  Hinchman  v.  Samuel  S.  Richie, 
Edward  Richie,  John  M.  Whitall,  George  M.  Elkinton, 
John  Lippincott,  John  D.  Griscom,  Anna  TV.  Hinch- 
man, John  L.  Kite,  Elizabeth  R.  Shoemaker,  Benjamin 
H.  Warder,  Philip  Garrett,  Joshua  K.  Worthington, 
Charles  Evans,  William  Biddle,  and  Thomas  Wistar,  Jr. 
The  defendants  were  charged  with  a  malicious  conspir- 

V 

1  For  the  facts  in  this  case  I  have  depended  on  the  report  in  the  Public 
Ledger  newspaper,  and  a  pamphlet  called  "  Speeches  of  Defendants' 
Counsel,  and  the  Charge  of  Judge  Burnside  in  the  Case  of  Hinchrnan  v. 
Richie  et  ah.,  reported  by  Dyer  and  Murphy,  Philadelphia,  1849." 


298  THE   HINCHMAN   CASE. 

acy  to  confine  the  plaintiff  in  the  Friends'  Asylum  for 
the  Insane,  near  Frankford,  Penn.,  either  for  the  purpose 
of  compelling  him  to  settle  his  property  on  his  wife  and 
children,  or  of  obtaining  it  for  some  one  or  more  of  the 
defendants.  To  help  the  reader  to  understand  the  case, 
we  will  state  that  the  Richies  are  brothers,  one  of  them 
a  relative  of  the  plaintiff,  and  took  the  leading  part  in  the 
act  of  arresting  him  and  conveying  him  to  the  asylum ; 
that  Lippincott,  Elkinton,  and  Whitall  assisted  in  this  act ; 
that  Kite,  who  is  a  physician,  gave  a  certificate  of  insan- 
ity ;  that  Elizabeth  R.  Shoemaker  is  his  wife's  sister,  and 
Anna  W.  Hinchman  his  own  sister,  both  being  charged 
with  abetting  in  some  way  the  conspiracy;  that  Gris- 
com  was  the  plaintiff's  family  physician,  and  advised 
him  to  go  quietly  ;  that  Wistar  was  charged  with  having 
some  connection  with  the  sale  of  plaintiff's  property  ; 
that  Warder  is  one  of  the  managers  of  the  asylum,  and 
gave  the  order  of  admission  ;  that  Biddle  is  charged  with 
being  corruptly  placed  on  the  sheriff's  jury  that  tried 
the  question  of  his  insanity  after  he  was  placed  in  the 
asylum ;  that  Evans  was  the  visiting,  and  Worthington 
the  resident  physician,  and  Garrett  the  steward  of  the 
asylum.  The  jury  found  a  verdict  against  the  first  seven 
just  named,  and  assessed  the  damages  at  $10,000.  The 
rest  were  acquitted, —  Evans  at  the  close  of  the  plain- 
tiff's  evidence. 

It  appears  that  the  plaintiff  had  been  for  three  or  four 
years  previous  to  this  event  a  farmer  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  Philadelphia,  prior  to  which  he  had  been  a 
teller  in  a  bank.  In  1839  he  married  Miss  Shoemaker,  a 
woman  of  exemplary  worth  and  respectable  connections, 
and  a  member  like  himself  of  the  Society  of  Friends,  as 
were  also  the  families  of  each.  They  were  equal  in  point 
of  property,  the  wife's  being  settled  upon  her  by  him,  but 


THE    HINCHMAN   CASE.  299 

with  a  power  of  revocation  which  she  subsequently  used 
at  his  request,  and  for  his  benefit.  It  was  testified  by 
Hinchman's  mother,  whose  character  as  a  careful,  in- 
telligent, and  affectionate  parent  was  placed  beyond  the 
reach  of  doubt, —  and  her  testimony  in  every  essential 
respect  was  corroborated  by  that  of  many  others,  —  that 
soon  after  his  marriage  his  conduct  became  so  strange 
and  unnatural  as  to  raise  the  suspicion  of  insanity  ;  that 
this  suspicion  was  finally  turned  into  positive  belief,  and 
that  she  and  his  wife  came  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
discipline  of  an  asylum  was  necessary,  in  order  to  arrest 
the  farther  progress  of  the  disease,  and  restore  his 
mental  health.  To  aid  them  in  effecting  this  measure, 
they  applied  to  the  Richies,  one  of  whom  was  a  relative 
of  the  family,  and  with  both  of  whom  they,  as  well  as 
the  plaintiff,  had  been  in  habits  of  frequent  and  familiar 
intercourse.  They  met  him  at  a  tavern,  disclosed  their 
intentions,  and  forthwith  carried  him  to  the  asylum,  7th 
of  January,  1847.  Soon  after,  a  commission  of  lunacy 
was  issued,  which  found  him  insane  for  some  months 
previous.  After  a  residence  of  six  months  he  was  dis- 
charged as  recovered,  but  has  not  lived  with  his  family, 
and  has  been  chiefly  occupied  in  preparing  this  suit. 

In  the  present  case  the  defendants  rested  their  defence 
on  the  plaintiff's  insanity,  of  which  they  presented 
uncommonly  clear  and  abundant  evidence,  although  pre- 
vented from  calling  those  who  were  most  capable  of  fur- 
nishing it.  The  persons  who  had  always  been  on  the 
footing  of  a  familiar  acquaintance  with  Hinchman  and 
his  family,  who  had  known  him  intimately  from  his  child- 
hood and  marked  every  phase  of  his  mental  condition, 
who  had  been  made  acquainted  with  every  incident  of 
his  domestic  life,  and  been  his  confidential  friends  and 
advisers,  were   made    parties  instead    of  witnesses  in 


300  THE   HIKCHMAN   CASE. 

the  case,  —  many  of  tliem  apparently  for  no  other  reason 
than  to  shut  their  mouths.  True,  there  was  one,  not  in- 
cluded in  the  band  of  conspirators,  who  might  have  un- 
folded a  tale  of  moodiness  and  excitement,  of  attempts  at 
suicide,  of  frequent  unkindness  and  annoyance  towards 
those  most  entitled  to  his  regard,  but  it  was  not  for  her 
to  lay  bare  to  the  public  gaze  the  privacies  of  her  domes- 
tic hours.  The  witnesses  who  did  testify  to  his  insan- 
ity seem  to  have  labored  under  the  usual  difficulty, — 
that  of  conveying  to  others  the  strong  and  well-grounded 
convictions  of  their  own  minds.  Where  the  disease  is 
evinced  in  gross  delusions,  it  is  comparatively  easy  for 
one  to  describe  them  with  clearness  and  precision,  and 
thus  give  an  intelligible  reason  for  his  belief;  but  where 
the  disease  is  chiefly  manifested  in  the  conduct  or  dis- 
position, appearing  in  acts  unseasonable  or  inappropriate 
to  the  circumstances  of  the  patient,  in  moods  and  freaks 
not  incompatible  with  sanity,  perhaps,  but  quite  foreign 
to  his  natural  character,  then  the  witness  is  naturally 
embarrassed  in  endeavoring  to  convey  to  others  the 
impressions  so  strongly  felt  by  himself.  His  opinion  is 
founded  upon  a  general  view  of  the  life  and  character 
of  the  person  for  the  period  under  consideration.  On 
the  witness-stand  he  finds  that  this  view  is  to  be  analyzed  ; 
and  each  particular,  in  itself  alone  no  proof  of  unsound- 
ness, is  to  be  subjected  to  the  unrelenting  scrutiny  of 
court  and  counsel.  They  are  satisfied  only  with  mani- 
festations which  in  and  of  themselves,  independent  of 
all  others,  are  unequivocal  proofs  of  mental  unsoundness. 
How  little  of  insanity  is  manifested  in  this  manner  is 
well  known  to  those  practically  acquainted  with  the 
disease,  but  by  most  others  it  is  supposed  to  be  always 
associated  with  gross  delusions,  or  acts  of  ungovernable 
fury  and  frenzy.     Still,  the  evidence  was  sufficient,  we 


THE    HIXCH3IAX    CASE.  301 

should  imagine,  to  satisfy  any  unprejudiced  mind  that 
Hinchman  was  unequivocally  insane  ;  and  that  his  friends 
were  perfectly  justified  by  the  kind  and  degree  of  his 
malady  in  placing  him  in  an  asylum,  whether  for  cura- 
tive or  merely  custodial  purposes.  Of  course  our  limits 
will  scarcely  permit  us  to  give  more  than  a  general  sum- 
mary of  its  most  important  parts. 

The  mother  of  Hinchman  testified  that  soon  after  his 
marriage  she  observed  a  change  in  his  temper  and  de- 
meanor, that  showed  itself  in  turns  of  moodiness  and 
dejection,  in  rudeness  and  ill-nature,  in  inconsiderate  and 
unkind  treatment  of  others,  and  appeared  with  more  or 
less  frequency  up  to  the  time  of  his  going  to  the  asylum. 
Several  specific  instances  were  related  of  rude  and  un- 
feeling treatment  which  she  received  from  him  when 
visiting  his  family,  although  from  his  childhood  upward 
he  had  ever  evinced  a  kind  and  affectionate  disposition. 
Many  witnesses  bore  testimony  to  similar  freaks  and 
caprices  of  temper  during  the  period  in  question,  and 
among  them  wTere  mentioned  repeated  instances  of  the 
most  heartless  disregard  of  the  feelings  of  his  wife,  of 
his  mother,  and  his  sisters.  The  mental  disturbance 
was  sometimes  so  great  that  he  abandoned  himself  to 
acts  that  bore  the  impress  of  madness  on  their  very 
face.  One  witness  found  him  kneeling  on  the  floor,  sigh- 
ing and  groaning,  then  rolling  himself  over  the  floor, 
and  finally  breaking  away  and  running  into  the  street. 
In  1844  he  severely  whipped  a  child  he  happened  to 
meet  in  the  street,  but  whom  he  did  not  even  know,  for 
the  reason,  as  he  afterwards  told  the  father,  that  he 
feared  he  would  hurt  the  other  little  boy  with  whom  he 
was  playing,  and  then  asked  the  father's  forgiveness. 
More  than  once  he  stripped  himself  stark  naked  in  his 
kitchen  in  the  presence  of  a  female  domestic,  in  order  to 


302  THE  HINCHMAN   CASE. 

bathe.  In  1844  he  became  a  defaulter  to  the  bank  of 
which  he  was  teller,  and  in  informing  his  mother  and  wife 
of  the  fact  he  added  that  it  was  revealed  to  him  that,  if 
he  did  not  stand  up  in  meeting  and  confess  his  sin,  his 
first-born  child  would  be  taken  from  him.  Once,  having 
invited  some  ladies  into  his  carriage,  he  drove  through 
the  streets  with  a  young,  unbroken  horse,  much  to  their 
astonishment  and  fright.  After  selling  a  couple  of  pigs, 
he  insisted  that  one  was  bigger  than  the  other,  and  worth 
just  two  cents  more,  which  the  buyer  paid. 

Coming  down  to  the  period  near  that  of  his  removal 
to  the  asylum,  a  witness  stated  that  he  came  to  her 
house  in  December,  1846,  to  sell  some  pork,  saying 
that  he  had  killed  a  pig  on  purpose  for  them,  though 
they  had  not  engaged  any.  He  talked  fast  and  wildly 
upon  a  variety  of  subjects,  no  one  else  speaking.  To 
another  in  the  same  month  he  insisted  on  selling  two 
pounds  of  butter,  for  the  purpose  of  raising  a  thousand 
dollars  ;  and  said  if  he  did  not  take  the  butter,  he  (the 
witness)  must  find  him  (Hinchman)  a  purchaser  for  his 
Marshall  Street  property.  He  left  on  the  minds  of  wit- 
ness and  wife  a  strong  impression  of  his  derangement. 
Three  witnesses  stated  that  he  came  into  the  monthly 
meeting  on  the  4th  of  January,  1847,  and  spoke  several 
times,  incoherently  and  unintelligibly,  so  that  they  could 
not  tell  which  side  he  was  on.  He  was  not  dressed  like 
a  Friend,  his  face  was  flushed,  and  he  had  a  wild  look. 
Another  stated  that  the  day  before  Hinchman  was  taken 
to  the  asylum  he  came  to  her  father's  house,  where  he 
was  not  in  the  habit  of  visiting,  and  dined  with  them; 
that  while  at  table  he  went  into  a  long  conversation 
about  his  property  and  his  money  ;  that  he  poured  out 
his  money  upon  the  table  and  counted  it  over,  telling 
them  that  Judge  Fox  had  promised  to  get  money  for 


THE   HIXCmiAN   CASE.  303 

him,  but  could  not  do  it,  because  people  said  that  he 
(Hinchman)  was  crazy.  He  left  the  impression  upon 
her  and  the  family  that  he  was  deranged.  Two  others 
testified  that  on  the  same  day  he  came  to  their  house 
and  behaved  in  such  an  unusual  and  extraordinary 
manner  that  they  thought  he  must  be  insane.  Hinch- 
man's  mother  testified  that  she  concluded  from  his  wife's 
statements  that  he  was  getting  worse,  that  he  had  no 
intervals  between  his  turns  of  excitement,  that  he  com- 
plained much  of  his  head,  and  that  his  memory  was 
leaving  him.  Dr.  Griscom,  his  physician  and  friend, 
who  knew  him  intimately,  advised  him  to  accede  to  the 
wishes  of  his  family,  and  go  to  the  asylum.  Dr.  Evans, 
the  physician  of  the  institution,  testified  that  he  found 
him  laboring  under  some  functional  derangement  of 
the  digestive  organs,  accompanied  by  delusions.  He 
imagined  that  he  had  syphilis  ;  and  although  told  that  he 
had  no  such  disease,  and  he  admitted  that  he  had  not 
been  exposed  to  it,  yet  he  still  persisted  in  the  notion. 
He  assured  the  doctor  that  his  wife,  mother,  and  sister- 
in-law  were  entirely  deranged,  a  delusion  he  had  mani- 
fested previous  to  his  admission  into  the  asylum,  and 
once  expressed  his  belief  that  he  was  placed  in  the 
asylum  as  a  punishment  for  taking  the  money  from  the 
bank,  as  already  related.  Shortly  before  leaving,  he 
said  he  was  sensible  that  when  he  entered  the  asylum 
his  mind  was  not  right,  but  that  then  he  was  relieved. 
The  witness  also  stated  his  belief  that  Hinchman's 
disease  was  more  likely  to  be  cured  by  the  discipline  of 
an  asylum  than  by  any  other  measure.  It  may  also  be 
mentioned,  in  this  connection,  that  two  of  his  fellow- 
clerks  in  the  bank  to  which  he  was  a  defaulter,  and  one 
of  its  directors,  expressed  at  the  time  their  belief  that  he 
was  insane  when  he  took  the  money.     A  committee  of 


804  THE  HINCHMAN  CASE. 

the  Friends'  meeting  to  which  he  belonged,  to  whom 
was  referred  the  subject  of  his  treatment  of  his  mother, 
reported  that  he  was  insane,  and  on  that  ground  ought 
not  to  be  disowned. 

To  meet  such  evidence  as  this  the  plaintiff  produced 
some  sixty  or  seventy  witnesses,  who  testified  substan- 
tially that  they  never  saw  or  knew  him  to  be  otherwise 
than  sane.  Their  means  of  observation  were  occasional 
interviews  in  the  streets,  in  meetings  of  a  horse  com- 
pany, and  petty  business  transactions.  Few  of  them 
were  ever  in  his  house,  and  not  one  was  an  intimate 
acquaintance.  Their  testimony  was  merely  negative, 
and  did  not  invalidate  a  particle  of  the  evidence  pre- 
sented on  the  other  side.  Similar  testimony  might  be 
given  respecting  the  majority  of  insane  men.  It  was 
not  pretended  that  Hinchman  was  habitually  deranged 
during  the  whole  period  in  question  of  seven  or  eight 
years.  His  mother  expressly  says  that  at  times  he 
appeared  like  himself,  and  she  as  well  as  others  de- 
scribed his  disorder  as  manifesting  itself  in  "  spells/'  or 
"  turns,"  in  the  intervals  of  which,  of  course,  he  be- 
haved with  his  natural  correctness  and  propriety.  'It 
was  to  be  expected,  therefore,  that  to  the  most  of  those 
who  saw  him  but  seldom,  and  were  comparative  stran- 
gers to  him,  he  would  exhibit  no  symptoms  of  mental 
derangement. 

The  motive  of  the  conspiracy,  as  set  forth  in  the 
declaration,  was  either  to  compel  Hinchman  to  settle  his 
property  on  his  wife  and  children,  or  obtain  it  for  some 
one  or  more  of  the  defendants.  Now,  in  regard  to 'the 
latter,  there  does  not  appear  to  be  one  tittle  of  evidence 
in  support  of  this  charge,  nor  indeed  could  there  be.  In 
no  event  could  any  of  the  defendants  be  benefited  by 
his  property,  except  his  own  and  his  wife's  sister,  and 


THE   HIXCHMAST   CASE.  305 

they  could  only  upon  the  contingency  of  the  death  of 
Hinchman,  of  his  wife  and  of  his  children,  and  this  con- 
tingency was  brought  no  nearer  by  his  being  placed 
in  an  asylum.  Indeed,  the  plaintiff's  counsel  scarcely 
attempted  to  prove  this  charge.  They  mainly  endeav- 
ored to  convey  the  impression  that  the  object  of  the 
conspiracy  was  to  change  the  control  of  the  property 
from  his  hands  to  his  wife's.  That  it  was  placed  in 
charge  of  a  commission  was  a  necessary  consequence  of 
his  being  insane  and  in  an  asylum ;  but  they  attempted 
to  show  that  the  defendants  made  his  liberation  from 
the  asylum  contingent  upon  his  conveying  his  property 
to  his  wife,  by  giving  her  a  deed  of  trust.  The  only 
proof  they  offered  was  the  testimony  of  some  of  the 
attendants  of  the  asylum,  which  was  substantially  that, 
in  passing  along,  they  heard,  or  thought  they  heard,  Dr. 
Worthington  and  Mr.  Garrett,  while  in  conversation  with 
Hinchman  or  his  friends,  say  something  about  a  deed  of 
trust.  That  is,  a  man  declared  to  be  insane  by  a  jury 
of  inquest,  and  whose  property  is  placed  in  charge  of 
a  commission,  is  solicited  to  execute  a  deed  of  trust 
of  that  property !  Were  his  counsel  serious  in  making 
this  point,  or  did  they  suppose  that  the  defendants  were 
fools  as  well  as  knaves  ?  The  facts  really  established  by 
the  evidence  in  regard  to  the  management  of  his  prop- 
erty by  others  were,  that  on  the  discharge  of  the  com- 
mission his  real  estate  was  restored  to  him  just  as  he 
left  it,  and  his  personal  property  accounted  for  to  him 
within  two  hundred  dollars  of  his  own  estimate,  a  num- 
ber of  debts  having  been  paid,  his  family  supported,  and 
an  execution  advantageously  satisfied  by  the  good  offices 
of  Edward  Richie. 

It   was    also  suggested  by  Hinchman's  counsel,  that 
another  motive  which  induced  his  mother  to  procure  his 

20 


306  THE   HINCHMAN    CASE. 

removal  to  an  asylum  was  to   gratify  her   revenge  for 
some  rude  treatment  she  received  from  him  a  year  or 
two  before.     Not  a  particle  of  evidence  is  offered  of  the 
fact;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  several  ladies  of  the  high- 
est respectability,  who  had  been  intimately  acquainted 
with    her  from    her    youth,  testified,  in   the    strongest 
manner,  in  favor  of  her  character  as  a  kind  and  affec- 
tionate mother.     If  the  counsel  possessed  any  proof  of 
such  an  object,  we  cannot  but  wonder  that  she  was  not 
placed  upon  the  roll  of  defendants.     That  they  should 
have    made  the    insinuation  without   proof,  stabbing  a 
defenceless  woman  in  the    dark,  was    probably  one    of 
those  innocent  liberties  which  are  supposed  to  be  com- 
patible with  professional  honor  and  dignity.    Taking  this 
view  of  the  case,  they  were  obliged  to  change  the  part 
previously  assigned  to  the  wife  on  the  theory  that  the 
object  of  Hinchman's  imprisonment  was  to   throw  the 
control  of  the  property  into  her  hands,  and  accordingly 
the    senior    counsel    declared    that  "  she  was    imposed 
upon,  and  had  no  hand  in  it."  In  regard  to  this  position, 
we  need  only  repeat  the  remark  of  the  court  upon  it, 
that  we  can  see  no  foundation  for  it  in  the  evidence. 
There  seems  to  be  no  end  to  the  puzzles  and  contradic- 
tions presented  by  this  most  extraordinary  trial,  but  our 
limits  will  confine  our  notice  to  one  more  only. 

On  the  close  of  the  plaintiff's  evidence,  it  was  moved 
that  Dr.  Griscom,  Miss  Hinchman,  Dr.  Evans,  and  Messrs. 
Warder  and  Wistar  should  be  acquitted,  no  evidence 
appearing  against  them.  The  court  advised  the  acquittal 
of  Evans  and  Hinchman,  but  the  jury  acquitted  only  the 
former.  This  gentleman  is  the  visiting  physician  of 
the  asylum,  in  which  capacity  he  makes  himself  ac- 
quainted with  the  mental  condition  of  the  patients, 
prescribes  their  medical  and  much  of  their  moral  treat- 


THE    HINCHMAN    CASE.  307 

ment,  and  decides  when  the}7  liave  recovered.  It  is 
for  him  to  say  whether  the  patient  is  or  is  not  insane, 
and  by  his  opinion  the  managers  are  guided  in  settling 
the  question  of  the  patient's  discharge,  or  further  de- 
tention. He  it  was  who  decided  the  fate  of  Morgan 
Hinchman  for  six  months  and  more  ;  who  pronounced 
him  insane,  treated  him  as  an  insane  man,  and  finally 
discharged  him  as  recovered  from  the  disorder.  If  any 
wrong  was  committed  upon  this  man,  Dr.  Evans  was 
unquestionably  the  principal  offender.  The  others 
merely  conceived  and  initiated  the  wrong,  while  he 
consummated  and  continued  it  month  after  month.  All 
their  efforts  to  gratify  the  unnatural  passion  of  the 
mother,  or  strip  him  of  his  property  for  their  own  or  his 
wife's  benefit,  would  have  been  powerless  without  his 
cooperation.  If  Hinchman  were  really  not  insane,  who 
was  more  deeply  responsible  for  his  confinement  than  Dr. 
Evans?  If, on  the  other  hand,  he  were  insane,  —  and  the 
acquittal  of  Dr.  Evans  was  tantamount  to  the  admission 
of  the  fact,  —  wherein  consists  the  guilt  of  those  defend.- 
ants  who  conveyed  him  to  the  asylum?  If  Dr.  Evans 
were  correct  in  his  opinion  of  Hinchman's  insanity,  and 
consequently  entitled  to  an  acquittal,  why  should  Dr. 
Kite  have  been  punished,  who  had  no  other  connection 
with  the  case  than  to  give  a  certificate  of  insanity  ? 

If  we  are  to  receive  the  construction  put  upon  the 
law  by  the  court,  —  namely,  that  "  a  conspiracy  to  do  a 
lawful  act,  if  for  an  unlawful  end,  is  indictable,"  —  then 
perhaps  the  innocence  of  some  of  the  defendants  would 
not  necessarily  follow  the  admission  of  Hinchman's 
insanity.  That  is,  although  they  might  lawfully  carry 
him  to  the  asylum  on  account  of  his  insanity,  yet,  if 
they  were  to  be  benefited  thereby  in  a  pecuniary  re- 
spect, then  it  would  be  an  unlawful  act,  whether  he 


308  THE   HINCHMAN    CASE. 

were  sane  or  insane.  However  much  this  construction 
might  affect  the  Richies  and  some  others,  we  cannot  see 
how  it  could  bring  Lippincott  into  the  conspiracy.  He 
was  on  his  way  to  the  coach-office,  in  order  to  take  his 
seat  for  Frankford  where  his  daughter  was  ill,  when  he 
was  met  by  some  of  the  defendants,  who  told' him  they 
were  about  to  take  Hinchman  to  the  asylum,  and  in- 
vited him  to  take  a  seat  in  their  carriage.  There  is  no 
proof  that  he  had  the  slightest  reason  to  suppose  that 
they  had  any  other  object  than  the  ostensible  one, — 
an  act  of  humanity.  And,  even  if  he  had,  it  does  not 
appear  that  he  laid  a  finger  upon  Hinchman. 

Notwithstanding  the  great  pains  taken  by  the  plain- 
tiff's counsel  to  give  a  strong  coloring  of  guilt  to  this 
transaction,  and  the  vindictive  character  of  the  verdict, 
we  can  see  in  the  act  no  unusual  features,  no  suspicious 
circumstances.  It  was  a  reasonable,  an  honest,  a  humane 
measure,  deliberately  and  conscientiously  planned,  and 
judiciously  carried  out.  For  several  years  a  gentleman 
has  been  regarded  by  his  family,  and  many  of  his  rela- 
tives, friends,  and  neighbors,  as  subject  to  occasional 
derangement.  He  purloins  money,  and  the  act  is  attrib- 
uted to  insanity.  He  offers  violence  to  his  mother,  and 
the  meeting  to  which  he  belongs  forbears  to  deal  with 
him,  because  he  was  insane.  He  disturbs  the  peace  and 
comfort  of  his  family,  but  the  partner  of  his  joys  and 
sorrows  bears  and  forbears,  hoping  that  his  malady  will 
finally  yield,  and  every  "  spell "  will  be  the  last.  Finding 
their  hopes  disappointed,  and  the  disease  steadily  gain- 
ing strength,  the  wife  and  the  mother,  after  deliberately 
consulting  with  their  and  his  friends  and  relatives, 
finally  resolve  to  place  him  in  one  of  those  institu- 
tions which  are  supposed  to  possess  peculiar  facilities 
for  restoring  the  health  of  the   disordered   mind.     To 


I 

THE    HENCHMAN   CASE.  309 

cany  this  measure  into  effect,  they  solicit  the  good 
offices  of  a  couple  of  gentlemen,  one  a  relative,  and 
both  his  tried  and  faithful  friends ;  and  they,  like  good 
friends  and  neighbors  as  they  are,  perform  the  unpleas- 
ant duty.  A  petition  is  immediately  offered  for  a  com- 
mission of  lunacy,  and  a  jury  of  inquest  find  him  insane. 
All  the  privileges  and  indulgences  at  the  command  of 
one  of  the  most  excellent  establishments  in  our  country 
are  afforded  him,  so  far  as  they  are  found  compatible 
with  his  condition  and  comfort.  He  corresponds  with 
and  visits  his  friends,  and  receives  their  visits.  Under 
this  wholesome  discipline  his  mental  health  improves ; 
and  after  a  few  months,  without  the  slightest  objection 
from  any  one,  he  is  discharged  as  restored  to  his  usual 
health.  Now,  in  this  whole  history  we  cannot  discover 
a  single  strange  or  unusual  feature,  —  not  a  single  mark 
of  fraud,  or  malice,  or  unfairness.  To  discover  in  it 
such  qualities,  required  feelings  perverted  and  em- 
bittered by  disease,  a  public  sentiment  poisoned  by  the 
machinations  of  artful  and  unscrupulous  men,  and  a 
jury  with  imaginations  inflamed  by  pictures  of  a  wor- 
thy and  harmless  man  seized  at  mid-day  by  a  band  of 
ruffians,  torn  from  the  embraces  of  his  w7ife  and  children, 
immured  in  a  prison  worse  than  the  Bastile,  denied  the 
sight  of  his  friends,  stripped  of  his  property,  and  in 
daily  peril  of  his  life  from  the  assaults  of  raving 
maniacs. 

In  another  and  a  very  important  point,  this  case  is 
not  without  a  frequent  parallel.  We  are  satisfied  that 
Hinchman  belongs  to  a  class  of  patients  —  not  a  small 
one  by  any  means  —  who  recover  so  far  as  to  be  able  to 
resume  their  customary  pursuits  and  to  conduct  with 
tolerable  correctness,  but  never  obtain  a  healthy  tone 
of  thought  or  feeling  on  the  subject  of  their  infirmity. 


310  THE   HINCHMAN   CASE. 

Instead  of  manifesting  any  gratitude  towards  those  who 
watched  over  and  cared  for  them  when  unable  to  care 
for  themselves,  and  conducted  them  safely  from  under 
the  cloud  that  enshrouded  their  minds,  they  regard  them- 
selves as  having  suffered  a  grievous  wrong  in  every  step 
of  their  management.  They  are  unwilling  to  admit  that 
their  intellect  has  been  obscured  for  a  moment ;  and 
this  kind  of  pride,  joined  with  a  certain  moral  obliquity 
attributable  to  disease,  makes  them  burn  with  hate  and 
hostility  towards  every  one  who  had  any  agency  in 
effecting  their  seclusion,  —  the  very  partner  of  their 
bosom,  as  well  as  the  institution  under  whose  restora- 
tive influences  reason  has  regained  some  measure  of  her 
lost  dominion.  Such  feelings  have  only  to  be  artfully 
stimulated  and  managed  by  mischievous  acquaintances 
to  find  vent  in  law-suits  and  criminal  prosecutions. 

The  court,  we  are  glad  to  see,  afforded  no  countenance 
to  a  notion  of  the  plaintiff's  counsel,  that  a  person  could 
not  be  deprived  of  his  liberty,  even  on  account  of  in- 
sanity, without  a  trial  by  his  peers  ;  and  distinctly 
approved  of  the  doctrine  laid  down,  and  settled,  we 
trust,  for  all  coming  time,  by  Chief  Justice  Shaw,  of 
Massachusetts,1  that  the  right  to  restrain  an  insane 
man  of  his  liberty  is  to  be  found  in  the  "  great  law  of 
humanity."  Subsequently,  however,  the  right  is  so 
often  affirmed  by  the  court  in  connection  with  some 
condition  or  qualification,  that  we  are  left  in  a  little 
doubt  as  to  the  exact  principle  which  it  would  as- 
sert. "  If,"  it  says,  "  Morgan  Hinchman  was  placed  in 
this  asylum  for  the  mercenary  purpose  of  getting  him 
to  convey  his  property  in  any  way,  it  was  a  foul  con- 
spiracy ;  if  it  was  honestly  and  conscientiously  done  for 

1  Law  Reporter,  viii.  122. 


THE    HIXCHMAX    CASE.  311 

the  purpose  of  restoring  him  to  health,  they  conscien- 
tiously believing  him  to  be  diseased,  and  you  should  be 
of  that  opinion,  it  presents  a  case  in  which,  as  I  have 
told  you,  the  patients  may  be  taken  in '  charge  by  rela- 
tions and  friends,  by  wives  and  by  mothers."  This  is 
very  plain,  but  how  are  we  to  understand  the  following 
remark?  "  If  you  are  satisfied  that  Morgan  Hinchman 
was  so  partially  insane  that  it  was  dangerous  to  him- 
self, dangerous  to  his  wife,  and  dangerous  to  his  chil- 
dren, for  him  to  be  at  liberty,  and  that  these  men  acted 
from  pure  motives,  and  placed  him  in  the  asylum  for  the 
purpose  of  restoring  him  to  health,  restoring  him  sound 
to  his  family,  I  hold  them  justified."  Again,  one  of 
the  points  offered  by  the  defendants  is,  "  that  if  they 
acted  under  circumstances  such  as  would  have  induced 
a  man  of  ordinary  intelligence  to  believe  the  plaintiff 
insane,  and  requiring  medical  treatment  in  an  asylum, 
the  plaintiff  cannot  recover."  To  this  the  court  answers: 
"  I  accede  to  this  if  the  jury  find  it  was  their  only 
motive  to  restore  him  in  health  and  soundness  to  his 
family."  By  this  language  it  seems  to  be  implied  that 
the  insanity  of  a  party  will  not  necessarily  justify  another 
in  placing  him  in  an  asylum  :  because  the  motive  of  the 
latter  may  be  bad.  To  extend  to  an  insane  man  the 
benefits  which  an  asylum  affords  is  usually  supposed  to 
be  a  sufficient  and  justifiable  reason  for  placing  him  in 
one.  If  in  the  deep  recesses  of  the  heart  there  lurks  a 
mercenary  feeling,  —  a  consciousness  of  benefit  to  be  de- 
rived, some  day  or  other,  from  this  measure  so  salutary 
to  another, —  we  respectfully  submit  to  the  common  sense 
of  our  readers  whether  such  a  sentiment  can  be  made 
a  subject  of  judicial  inquiry.  We  cannot  learn,  from 
the  judge's  charge,  on  which  side  the  burden  of  proof 
respecting  the  character  of  the  motive  is  to  rest.     This 


312  THE   HINCHMAN   CASE. 

would  seem  to  be  an  important  point.  The  practical 
consequence  of  this  doctrine  of  the  .court,  if  confirmed, 
would  be  to  deter  the  relatives  of  any  patient  from  taking 
measures  for  his  seclusion,  because  it  may  result  in  their 
pecuniary  benefit,  and  thereby  subject  them  to  the 
charge  of  being  actuated  by  mercenary  motives.  While 
they  keep  aloof,  no  one  else  will  interfere  ;  and  the  un- 
fortunate patient  is  left  to  his  own  courses,  until  his 
disorder  has  become  incurable,  and  seclusion  is  rendered 
a  measure  rather  custodial  than  curative.  Such  a  result 
the  court  certainly  could  not  contemplate  with  favor; 
and  it  is  to  be  regretted  that  the  opportunity  was  not 
taken  to  rebuke,  in  the  strongest  manner,  that  jealous,  in- 
termeddling spirit  which,  with  the  most  imperfect  knowl- 
edge of  the  facts,  and  no  personal  interest  whatever  in 
the  matter,  presumed  to  condemn  the  most  salutary 
measures,  and  to  poison  by  its  machinations  the  very 
fountains  of  justice.  This  notion  of  improper  motives 
pervades  the  charge  of  the  judge,  starting  up  before 
him  at  every  turn,  like  a  troubled  ghost,  and  frightening 
him  from  every  position  that  common  sense  and  common 
justice  invite  him  to  take. 

The  defendants  declare  that  the  finding  of  the  inquest 
"  that  the  plaintiff  was  insane  is  a  justification  of  the  arrest 
and  confinement,  so  long  as  it  is  necessary  for  the  health 
and  improvement  of  the  party."  The  judge  replies  sub- 
stantially that  this  position  is  correct,  provided  there 
were  no  corrupt  nor  fraudulent  contrivances  in  the  pro- 
ceeding. It  had  been  testified  by  one  of  the  plaintiff's 
witnesses,  that  Edward  Richie  told  him  that  he  (Richie) 
and  Biddle  handed  to  the  sheriff  a  list  of  jurors  for  the 
inquest  of  lunacy,  who  were  accordingly  summoned. 
This  fact  was  flatly  denied  by  the  sheriff,  who  emphati- 
cally declared    that    every  member    of   that    jury  was 


THE    HIXCHMAN    CASE.  313 

selected  b}7  himself,  without  the  slightest  suggestion 
from  any  one.  The  acquittal  of  Biddle  shows  that  the 
jury  chose  to  believe  the  sheriff;  and  consequently, 
there  having  been  no  fraud,  the  finding  of  the  inquest, 
upon  the  above  admission  of  the  court,  was  a  justifica- 
tion of  the  arrest  and  imprisonment.  With  what  con- 
sistency, then,  could  the  jury  render  a  verdict  against 
Elkinton,  Lippincott,  and  Whitall,  who  had  no  other 
connection  with  the  case  than  to  assist  in  such  arrest? 
We  are  almost  forced  to  the  conclusion,  by  this  and 
other  similar  inconsistencies,  that  some  victims  were 
deemed  necessary  to  appease  the  wounded  pride  and 
morbid  feelings  of  the  plaintiff,  and  that  the  jury  were 
guided  in  their  selection  by  any  other  consideration  than 
that  of  guilt. 

Our  limits  will  prevent  us  from  adverting  to  every 
objectionable  feature  presented  by  this  case.  A  volume 
would  scarcely  suffice  for  that,  but  the  specimens  given 
will  enlighten  the  reader  respecting  its  general  char- 
acter, and  especially  of  the  animus  that  pervaded  the 
trial.  It  is  perfectly  obvious  that,  by  artful  appeals  to 
the  popular  passions  through  the  newspaper  press,  the 
defendants  had  been  tried  and  condemned  in  the  public 
mind  long  before  they  w^ent  through  the  formalities  of  a 
legal  trial.  This  explains  why  it  was  that  a  band  of  men 
and  women, than  whom  our  sister  city  has  few  more  eminent 
examples  of  moral  integrity  and  worth,  were  arraigned 
like  felons,  held  up  to  the  scorn  and  contumely  of  the 
world,  and  stripped  of  their  property  as  a  punishment 
for  their  crimes.  But  we  are  not  anxious  to  prolong 
an  examination  which,  the  farther  we  go,  only  deep- 
ens our  mortification  and  grief.  Thus  much  we  felt 
bound  to  say,  in  our  character  of  faithful  journalists, 
of  a   trial  which  can   scarcely  find  its  parallel,  except 


314  THE   HINCHMAN   CASE. 

in  the  trials  for  treason  that   disgraced  the  reigns   of 
the  Stuarts. 

"  Can  such  things  be, 
And  overcome  us  like  a  summer's  cloud, 
Without  our  special  wonder  ? " 


THE   PARISH   WILL    CASE. 


[The  case  which  forms  the  subject  of  the  following-  opinion  will 
take  a  foremost  place  among  the  causes  celebres  of  our  country  ;  for, 
in  regard  to  the  curious  pathological  questions  it  raised,  to  the  num- 
ber and  distinction  of  the  experts  whose  opinions  were  obtained,  to 
the  social  prominence  of  the  parties  concerned,  to  the  magnitude  of 
the  pecuniary  interests  involved,  and  to  the  dramatic  element  that 
characterized  the  movements  which  led  to  the  testamentary  acts,  it 
is  certainly  unprecedented  in  our  judicial  annals.  It  occasioned  an 
immense  amount  of  inquiry  and  discussion  respecting  the  effects  of 
apoplexy,  paralysis,  and  epilepsy,  on  the  mental  condition.  The 
records  of  hospitals  were  searched,  the  personal  experience  of  para- 
lytics exhibited;  and,  besides  the  written  opinions  of  gentlemen 
specially  conversant  with  insanity,  several  eminent  physicians  con- 
tributed the  results  of  their  learning-  and  observation.  Never,  in 
fact,  were  the  mental  and  pathological  effects  of  paralytic  affections 
more  thoroughly  investigated ;  and  in  the  numerous  papers  thus  pro- 
duced the  medical  student  will  find  a  rich  mine  of  information. 

Most  of  the  testimony  was  submitted  in  print  to  several  gentlemen 
supposed  to  be  specially  skilled  in  mental  diseases,  and  their  opinion 
requested  as  to  the  mental  condition  of  the  person  to  whom  it  re- 
ferred. Among  the  opinions  obtained  in  reply  to  this  request  was 
the  following,  from  the  writer  of  these  remarks. 

Since  it  was  written,  it  happens  that  the  prominent  feature  of 
the  case,  oj/Ju/sia,  or  loss  of  speech,  has  been  considerably  investi- 
gated by  various  observers.  These  investigations  have  greatly  in- 
creased our  knowledge  of  its  anatomical  and  pathological  relations; 
but  I  am  not  aware  that  such  knowledge  would  have  thrown  any 
light  on  the  questions  presented  in  Mr.  Parish's  case.  Had  an 
autopsy,  for  instance,  revealed  a  serious  lesion  in  a  certain  convolu- 


316  THE    PARISH   WILL    CASE. 

tion  of  the  brain,  the  fact  would  have  been  interesting  as  a  confirma- 
tion of  a  general  law,  but  would  not  have  helped  us  to  decide  whether 
that  gentleman  was  competent  to  make  a  will.  For  the  question  was 
not  whether  his  brain  was  diseased,  but  whether  it  appeared  from 
actual  observation  that  he  had  or  had  not  a  testamentary  capacity. 

It  is  a  noteworthy  fact,  in  the  trial  of  this  case,  that  the  Surrogate 
wisely  determined  that  the  medical  opinions  should  be  given  in 
writing,  with  the  understanding  that,  though  not  clothed  with  the 
authority  of  legal  evidence,  they  would  be  carefully  considered  and 
credited  with  all  the  weight  to  which  they  were  really  entitled.*  Such 
a  remarkable  disregard  of  technicalities  was  at  once  significant  of 
his  own  breadth  of  mind,  and  conducive  to  the  most  exact  and  com- 
plete expression  of  belief.  It  enabled  the  expert  to  utter  —  what  is 
impossible  in  the  usual  method  of  examination  and  cross-examination 
—  his  opinions  and  the  reasons  for  opinions,  with  that  coherence  and 
logical  relation  absolutely  necessary  to  show  their  full  force  and  sig- 
nificance. This  was  a  movement  in  the  right  direction,  and  is  well 
worthy  of  imitation  wherever  the  mode  of  procedure  admits  of  it. 

The  Surrogate  admitted  the  first  codicil  and  excluded  the  other 
two.  The  case  was  taken  to  the  Supreme  Court,  which  decided 
against  all  three  codicils  ;  and  this  decision  was  affirmed  by  the  Court 
of  Appeals, — the  court  of  last  resort.] 

Henry  Parish,  a  prosperous  New. York  merchant, 
made  his  will  in  the  year  1842,  being  then  fifty-four 
years  old.  It  is  a  long  and  elaborate  instrument,  dis- 
tributing his  property,  supposed  at  that  time  to  be  worth 
about  $750,000,  among  a  considerable  number  of  rela- 
tives, and  indicating  a  nice  balancing  of  their  respective 
claims  on  his  bounty.  Having  provided  liberally  for  his 
wife,  and  distributed  a  large  share  of  the  estate  among 
his  kindred,  he  constitutes  his  brothers  Daniel  and 
James  the  residuary  legatees.  While  in  Europe,  in 
1843,  he  had  what  seems  to  have  been  an  apoplectic 
attack,  from  which,  however,  he  shortly  recovered,  and 
continued  as  well  apparently  as  ever,  both  in  body  and 
mind,  until  the  19th  of  July,  1849,  when  he  had  another 
apoplectic   attack,  much  more   severe.    In  the  course  of 


THE   PAEISS   WELL   CASE.  317 

about  a  fortnight  he  was  out  of  immediate  danger,  but 
never  recovered  his  ordinary  condition.  His  right  side 
(including  the  upper  and  lower  limbs)  was  found  to  be 
somewhat  paralyzed,  the  power  of  articulation  Avas  lost, 
and  his  natural  elasticity  and  vigor  were  gone.  These 
traits  continued  with  little  change  until  he  died,  in 
1856. 

Within  a  year  from  the  date  of  the  attack  he  became 
able  to  walk  with  a  crutch,  and  the  aid  of  another  person 
generally.  It  does  not  appear  that  he  ever  obtained  the 
use  of  his  right  hand.  Until  within  a  few  months  of  his 
death  he  continued  able  to  utter  a  few  monosyllables, 
described  by  some  of  the  witnesses  as  "  oh,  dear," 
"yes,"  and  "no,"  and  a  few  inarticulate  sounds.  Dur- 
ing this  period  he  had  several  attacks  of  bodily  illness, 
such  as  cholera  morbus,  inflammation  of  the  lungs, 
abscess  under  the  jaw,  and  intestinal  inflammation. 

The  functions  of  the  bladder  and  rectum  were  some- 
what disturbed,  a  part  of  the  time  at  least;  and  hence 
arose  an  increased  frequency  of  evacuating  these  organs. 
Epileptic  fits  occurred  within  a  few  months  of  the  apo- 
plectic attack  of  July,  1849,  at  intervals  varying  from 
eight  days  to  six  months  or  more.  When  not  laboring 
under  a  particular  illness,  he  sat  in  his  library,  walked 
to  market  with  his  servant,  or  drove  out  in  his  carriage 
with  his  wife,  or  one  of  her  brothers. 

On  the  29th  of  August,  1849,  his  cross  in  lieu  of  a 
signature  was  subscribed  to  a  codicil  to  his  will,  which 
gave  to  his  wife  the  house  he  then  occupied,  and  a  cer- 
tain store  and  lot,  all  which  had  come  into  his  possession 
subsequently  to  the  execution  of  the  will,  the  house  de- 
vised to  his  wife  by  the  will  having,  in  the  mean  time, 
gone  out  of  his  possession.  This  codicil  was,  in  like 
manner,  executed  the  17th  of  December,  1849. 


318  THE   PARISH   WILL   CASE. 

On  the  15th  of  September,  1853,  a  second  codicil  was 
subscribed  in  like  manner,  which  repeats  the  bequests 
of  the  first,  and  bequeaths  to  his  wife  some  $350,000 
in  certain  stocks  and  bonds.  It  also  bequeaths  $50,000 
to  various  charitable  institutions,  and  revokes  the  ap- 
pointment of  Daniel  Parish  as  one  of  the  executors  of 
the  will,  as  well  as  the  bequest  to  him  of  $10,000  as 
executor. 

On  the  15th  of  June,  1854,  a  third  codicil  was  made, 
which  substitutes  his  wife,  as  residuary  legatee,  in  the 
place  of  Daniel  and  James  Parish. 

These  codicils  were  contested  in  the  Surrogate's  Court 
on  the  ground  that,  when  they  were  made,  the  testator 
had  not  a  testamentary  capacity,  and  the  question  before 
us  now  is,  what  was  the  mental  condition  of  Henry  Parish 
during  the  period  between  the  attack  in  1849  and  his 
death  in  1856. 


Paralysis,  the  sequel  of  apoplexy,  is  not  invariably 
accompanied  by  very  obvious  mental  impairment ;  but 
such  is  very  frequently  the  case,  especially  after  the 
attacks  have  been  repeated  once  or  twice.  The  occur- 
rence of  epilepsy  in  the  present  case,  subsequently  to 
the  paralysis,  is  an  additional  indication  of  a  high 
degree  of  morbid  action  in  the  brain.  Under  these  cir- 
cumstances, therefore,  some  degree  of  mental  impair- 
ment might  have  been  naturally  expected. 

The  manifestations  of  mental  impairment  ma}T  not  be 
very  patent  in  a  person  deprived  of  the  power  of  articu- 
lation, but  they  cannot  easily  be  mistaken  by  those 
who  are  practically  conversant  with  mental  affections. 
Speech  is  but  one  means  of  expressing  ideas  and  emo- 


THE   PARISH   WILL   CASE.  319 

tions.  Signs,  writing,  actions,  may  be  less  easy,  but 
are  none  the  less  accurate  or  accessible.  Deaf  mutes 
are  a  standing  exemplification  of  this  fact.  The  mental 
condition  of  the  testator,  therefore,  is  to  be  ascertained 
by  his  acts  and  demeanor,  —  by  observing  what  he  did, 
and  by  considering  what  he  omitted  to  do. 

For  a  few  years   previous  to  his  attack  in   1849  he 
had  retired  from  business,  except  the  investment  of  his 
income  in   real   estate,   bonds,  mortgages,  and    stocks. 
There  is  nothing  in   this   requiring    much    exercise  of 
thought.       The    essential   points  in   any  transaction  of 
this  kind  are  few,  easily  accessible,  and  easily  compre- 
hended.     If  he   had   retained  his   mind  unimpaired,  it 
might  have   been    reasonably  expected    that   he  would 
continue  to  manage  his  affairs  in  this  way,  especially 
as  it  had  been  a  favorite  occupation  with  him.     If  he 
were   competent    for    any  thing,  he  was  for  this.     He 
could   have  indicated  the  securities   he  wished  to  pur- 
chase, by  pointing  them  out  in  the  papers  or  writing 
the  name.     If  he  wished  for  commercial  paper,  he  had 
only  to  visit  or  send  for  a  broker,  and  select  from  his 
stock  such  as  he  preferred.      His  dividends  he  might 
have  collected  for  himself,  and  the  little  assistance  he 
might  have  needed  in  any  of  these  transactions  could 
have  been  furnished  by  his  book-keeper  or  some  friend. 
With  his  love   of  accumulation,  and    the    gratification 
he  derived  from  a  good  bargain,  he  never  would  have 
delegated,  in  any  degree,  the   business  of  investing  his 
income,  even  to  his  own  wife.    It  appears,  however,  that 
within  a  year  from  the  attack  he  gave  her  a  power  of 
attorney  for  selling  his  securities,  and  that  she  usually 
collected  his  dividends.     While  it  is  impossible  to  say 
how  far  his  opinion  was  consulted  in  the  greater  por- 
tion of  his  purchases,  it    is  doubtful    at    best  whether 


320  THE   PARISH   WILL   CASE. 

any  single  transaction  was  entirely  the  result  of  his 
own  free  will  and  unguided  understanding.  The  usual 
practice  of  his  wife  was  to  drive  into  Wall  Street  with 
him,  and  there,  stopping  before  some  broker's  office, 
to  send  for  one  of  the  firm,  who  came  to  the  carriage, 
and,  having  ascertained  how  much  money  was  to  be 
invested,  the  broker  offered  various  notes  and  stocks. 
It  is  said  that,  as  these  were  read  to  him,  he  expressed 
what  was  regarded  as  his  token  of  assent  or  dissent. 
Sometimes  the  business  was  finished  at  this  interview  ; 
at  other  times —  and  this  seems  to  have  been  the  more 
common  proceeding  —  a  day  or  two  was  taken  for  con- 
sideration, when  the  result  was  communicated  to  the 
broker  by  Mrs.  Parish.  In  the  latter  case  we  have  no 
means  of  knowing  how  much  Mr.  Parish  had  to  do 
with  the  result ;  and  in  the  former  his  agency,  even  if 
apparently  independent,  might  really  have  been  only 
the  expression  of  her  wishes.  There  was  no  reason 
why  she  should  interpose,  except  to  prevent  him  from  ac- 
cepting unsatisfactory  paper,  —  a  contingency  not  likely 
to  happen  when  dealing  with  such  men  as  the  Wards. 
If  his  sign  or  sound  was  thought  to  indicate  a  refusal 
of  what  he  might  as  well  have  accepted,  it  was  of  no 
consequence,  because  there  was  enough  more  equally 
good  from  which  a  choice  might  be  made.  His  assent 
or  dissent,  therefore,  might  have  been  expressed  with- 
out the  slightest  reference  to  the  quality  of  the  paper 
offered,  and  yet  the  actual  purchase  been  perfectly  satis- 
factory. 

In  the  loans,  too,  which  were  habitually  made,  it 
is  impossible  to  discern  his  controlling  agency.  Dr. 
Markoe,  who  hired  $10,000  of  his  funds,  says  he  ap- 
plied for  the  loan  through  Dr.  Delafield,  and  never 
exchanged  a  word  with   Mr.  Parish  about  it,  except  to 


THE    PARISH   WILL    CASE.  321 

thank  him  for  the  accommodation.  Mr.  Youngs,  the 
builder,  applied  to  him  for  loans  of  money,  but  always 
in  the  presence  of  Mrs.  Parish,  and  the  result,  whatever 
it  was,  was  always  by  her  knowledge  and,  consent.  The 
same  is  true  of  the  loans  to  Wiley.  One  of  them,  it 
seems,  was  larger  than  the  amount  of  his  funds  in  the 
bank ;  and  when  the  fact  was  pointed  out  by  his  wife 
he  appeared  to  be  much  irritated,  became  "  furiously 
mad,"  the  witness  said,  "  and  rapped  his  hand  as  hard 
as  he  could  on  the  table  three  or  four  times.''  Mr.  Tile- 
ston's  account  of  his  negotiation  with  him  for  the  use  of 
$200,000  worth  of  United  States  scrip,  besides  exhibit- 
ing the  agency  of  others  in  the  matter,  throws  much 
light  on  the  question  of  Mr.  Parish's  capacity.  When 
asked  on  what  terms  he  would  allow  the  bank  to  place 
this  stock  in  the  hands  of  the  Comptroller,  he  held  up 
two  fingers,  which,  Mrs.  Parish  said,  meant  $2,000  per 
annum.  Then  he  began  to  manifest  some  uneasiness ; 
and  after  repeated  unsuccessful  attempts  to  ascertain 
his  meaning,  Mr.  Tileston  was  obliged  to  leave  the 
transaction  unfinished.  Two  or  three  days  after,  he 
was  told  by  Mr.  Delafield  that  Mr.  Parish  was  not  satis- 
fied with  the  security,  viz.,  the  capital  of  the  bank  and 
the  liability  of  the  stockholders  for  $1,200,000  more,  but 
required  the  individual  security  of  the  directors.  This 
Mr.  T.  declared  to  be  out  of  the  question  ;  but  he  offered 
a  mortgage  of  the  bank  building,  appraised  at  8175,000. 
This  also  was  declined,  and  further  negotiation  was 
abandoned.  Now,  if  Mr.  Parish  understood  the  matter 
correctly,  and  the  three  witnesses  present  are  quite 
sure  that  he  did,  the  transaction  shows  very  equivocal 
proof  of  any  capacity  for  business  ;  the  more  striking, 
because  a  few  years  before  he  had  loaned  the  same  stock 
for  the  same  purpose,  and  on  security  far  less  perfect 

21 


oAA  THE   PARISH   WILL   CASE. 

than  that  now  offered  ;  and  if  Mr.  Parish  did  not  compre- 
hend the  matter,  it  shows  that  these  witnesses  entirely 
misunderstood  the  meaning  of  his  signs  and  looks. 

The  exclusive  agency  of  others  in  some  of  these 
investments  is  established  by  the  testimony  of  Mr. 
Kernochan,  who  says  that  Mrs.  Parish  often  consulted 
him  about  the  "  investments  that  were  being  made,  or 
about  to  be  made." 

From  all  these  transactions,  I  cannot  resist  the  im- 
pression that  Mr.  Parish  was  no  longer  the  same  man. 
In  all  probability,  before  his  illness  it  was  not  his 
custom  to  consult  his  wife  about  investments,  nor  her 
custom  to  consult  others. 

The  testimony  also  shows  abundantly  that  Mrs. 
Parish  took  a  prominent  part  in  many  other  matters  of 
business,  which  men  do  not  usually  delegate  to  their 
wives.  Mr.  Kernochan  speaks  of  their  both  coming  to 
the  office,  and  of  Mr.  Folsom's  showing  and  explaining 
the  books  to  Mrs.  Parish.  On  these  occasions  she  com- 
monly spoke  to  him,  he  says,  about  the  renting  of  prop- 
erty and  the  collection  of  dividends. 

In  regard  to  much  smaller  matters  in  which  he 
seemed  to  take  a  part,  the  indications  of  capacity  are 
not  very  obvious.  At  one  time,  in  the  summer  of  1850, 
he  was  in  the  habit  of  accompanying  his  servant  to 
market,  where  he  would  point  to  various  things ;  but  no 
one  could  understand  what  he  wanted,  and  if  they 
guessed  at  his  meaning,  and  sent  the  articles  to  his 
house,  portions  of  them  were  sometimes  returned  as 
unsuitable.  Austin,  the  poulterer,  says  that  on  one 
occasion  when  various  kinds  of  poultry  and  game  were 
carried  out  to  him,  in  order  that  he  might  choose  for 
himself,  he  only  flourished  his  cane,  and  acted  as  if  he 
were  crazy.   When  accompanied  by  his  wife  in  his  visits 


THE    PARISH    WILL   CASE.  32  J 

to  the  market,  it  seems  to  have  been  the  custom  for  her, 
finally,  to  order  the  dinner.  Just  before  going  to  bed 
he  usually  went  to  the  kitchen  and  ordered  his  break- 
fast, which  order,  as  interpreted  by  the  cook,  was  some- 
times countermanded  by  his  wife,  and  something  more 
suitable  for  his  condition  substituted.  The  evidence  of 
Sammis  shows  that  his  wife  regarded  him  as  not  compe- 
tent to  purchase  his  own  shoes,  and  Jones's  testimony 
shows  the  same  thing  in  relation  to  his  clothes. 

Again,  it  appears  that  during  the  whole  period  of  his 
illness  he  never  played  a  game  of  whist,  nor  engaged  in 
any  other  amusement.  Now,  when  we  consider  that  he 
had  of  late  years  been  passionately  fond  of  whist,  that 
it  was  often  played  by  his  wife  and  her  friends  in  his 
presence,  and  that  if  his  mind  were  unimpaired  he  must 
have  been  ready  to  adopt  any  means  of  whiling  away 
the  tedious  hours  of  confinement,  it  seems  impossible  to 
account  for  his  abstinence  from  this  game,  on  any  theory 
which  supposes  his  mind  to  have  been  untouched  by 
disease,  or  reduced  to  any  grade  much  above  the  lowest 
form  of  dementia.  The  knowledge  of  such  games  is 
among  the  last  things  that  fade  from  the  disordered 
mind  ;  and  in  every  hospital  for  the  insane,  patients  re- 
duced to  an  almost  vegetative  existence  may  be  seen 
playing  at  games  of  checkers  or  whist,  if  not  as  skilfully 
as  in  their  best  days,  yet  in  compliance  with  all  the  rules 
of  the  game,  and  with  more  or  less  gratification. 

Among  the  facts  which  seem  to  be  relied  on  as  proofs 
of  the  testator's  mental  soundness,  I  need  notice  only 
some  of  the  principal.  He  recognized  his  old  friends. 
He  went  through  the  ceremony  of  taking  wine  with  his 
guests.  To  a  person  standing  by  him  in  the  open  air 
uncovered  he  made  the  motion  to  put  on  his  hat.  He 
is  said  to  have   smiled  at  the  time  when  a  joke  was 


324  THE   PARISH    WILL    CASE. 

uttered  in  his  presence  on  one  or  two  occasions.  He 
would  point  to  his  head  or  other  parts  to  indicate  that 
he  had  pain  there.  When  the  affairs  of  a  neighbor  were 
spoken  of,  he  is  said  to  have  pointed  out  of  the  window 
in  the  direction  of  that  neighbor's  house.  He  indicated 
a  wish  to  change  his  clothes  when  soiled.  One  attendant 
says  he  had  taught  him  to  turn  down  the  coverlet  when 
he  wanted  the  urinal.  He  listened  with  apparent  atten- 
tion to  certain  conversation,  and  manifested  displeasure 
at  interruption.  A  nurse  says  when  the  hour  for  taking 
medicine  came  around  he  would  point  to  the  pill-box. 
These  incidents,  even  if  correctly  represented,  indicate 
but  a  very  small  measure  of  mental  capacity.  They  are 
not  incompatible  with  any  of  those  forms  of  dementia  in 
which  every  idea  of  cause  and  effect,  of  the  value  of 
property,  of  the  ties  of  consanguinity,  and  the  relative 
claims  of  family  and  friends,  has  long  since  disappeared. 

A  few  other  facts  of  a  higher  character  are  mentioned 
in  the  evidence,  which  may  seem  to  require  a  more  par- 
ticular notice.  Youngs,  the  builder,  says  that,  when  he 
read  to  him  bills  for  work,  Mr.  Parish  would  some- 
times stop  him,  and  look  inquiringly,  whereupon  Youngs 
would  ask  if  he  wanted  any  explanation,  when  Mr.  Par- 
ish would  say  "  yes."  The  force  of  this  testimony  is 
greatly  weakened,  if  not  entirely  destroyed,  by  Youngs 
himself,  who  says  that  Mr.  Parish  made  two  sounds, 
uttered  in  quick  repetition,  "  eh,  eh,  eh,"  and  "  nah, 
nah,  nah,"  as  he  spells  them,  and  which,  he  supposed, 
meant  respectively  yes  and  no. 

The  same  witness  says,  that  after  some  repairs  of  the 
roof  had  been  projected,  but  not  begun,  Mr.  Parish  would 
call  his  attention  to  it  whenever  he  saw  him, "  by  point- 
ing upwards  with  his  first  forefinger,  though  it  might 
have  been  two  sometimes,  raising  his  hand  as  high  as  the 


THE  PAKISH  WILL  CASE.  325 

lower  part  of  his  face,  and  at  the  same  time  looking 
upward."  On  being  asked  if  he  referred  to  the  roof, 
"he  would  nod  his  head  '  yes.'  "  This  piece  of  testimony 
is  open  to  the  same  objection  as  the  last,  —  the  point  on 
which  its  whole  value  depends  is  a  matter  of  guessing. 
Mr.  Parish  did  not  really  say  yes,  but  only  something 
which,  the  witness  supposed,  meant  yes ;  and  even  if 
Mr.  Parish  really  intended  to  remind  him  that  the  roof 
needed  repairing,  the  fact  would  only  show  a  degree  of 
intellect  far  below  what  is  required  for  testamentary 
purposes. 

Mr.  Wiley  says,  that,  having  borrowed  some  money  of 
him,  he  handed  him  a  promissory  note.  "  After  looking 
at  it,  he  made  a  motion  to  me,  uttering  a  continued  kind 
of  sound,  putting  the  note  on  his  knee,  and  striking  it 
with  the  ends  of  his  fingers  several  times,  as  much  as 
to  call  my  attention  to  it,  I  thought ;  I  took  hold  of  the 
note  then,  and  looked  at  it,  and  I  saw  there  had  been 
omitted  'interest  from  date.'  "  Another  note,  correctly 
written,  being  given  him,  he  looked  at  it  as  before, 
"  bowed  his  head  several  times,"  and  put  it  into  a 
satchel.  Now,  even  if  Mr.  Wiley  were  perfectly  correct 
in  his  conjectures  respecting  Mr.  Parish's  meaning,  the 
fact  would  prove  little.  A  man  who,  like  Mr.  Parish, 
had  been  giving  or  receiving  such  notes  all  his  life, 
would  readily  observe  so  important  an  omission  as  that, 
if  he  observed  any  thing.  It  would  show  only  one  of 
those  automatic  movements  of  the  mind,  like  those  con- 
cerned in  playing  games,  and  implying  no  more  exer- 
cise of  thought. 

Again,  the  same  witness  says,  "  He  would  sit  quietly 
on  the  reading  of  the  paper,  and  when  the  price  of  any 
particular  stock  had  advanced  from  the  previous  day's 
sales,  he  appeared  to  take  notice  of  it ;  would  rise  in 


326  THE   PAEISH   WILL   CASE. 

his  chair,  make  a  motion  with  his  hand,  and  sometimes 
nod  his  head,  and  sometimes  shake  his  hand,  always 
uttering  a  noise."  The  witness  thought  that  Mr.  Parish 
would  make  no  such  sound,  gesture,  or  motion  when  any 
other  subject  was  read  about.  At  the  best,  this  fact 
would  indicate  only  a  little  attention  and  memory, 
such  as  are  generally  witnessed  in  all  but  the  lowest 
forms  of  dementia. 

The  Rev.  Dr.  Taylor  states  that  he  administered  the 
Lord's  Supper  to  him  at  least  seventeen  times  during 
his  illness.  He  says,  "  His  manner  was  uniformly  devout 
and  humble.  He  seemed  to  be  always  very  much 
impressed  with  the  solemnity  of  the  occasion."  In  place 
of  the  regular  responses  he  "  made  a  sound  of  acquies- 
cence," and  with  his  left  hand  he  conveyed  the  bread 
and  cup  to  his  mouth.  All  this  displays  but  little  in- 
telligence. Like  every  person  born  and  educated  in 
a  Christian  land,  he  was  well  acquainted  with  the 
ordinances  of  religion,  and  in  partaking  of  them  no 
more  exercise  of  thought  was  required  than  in  par- 
taking of  his  regular  meals. 

The  fact  that  during  these  six  years  he  never  entered 
a  church  would  seem  to  imply  that  the  religious  senti- 
ment had  little  of  that  activity  which  might  have  been 
expected  in  a  sane  mind.  The  same  witness  states  that 
after  every  service  Mr.  Parish  gave  him  money  from  his 
own  pocket ;  but  this  act,  with  the  thousand  others 
which  are  performed  by  the  insane  with  the  utmost  cor- 
rectness, shows  no  exercise  of  the  reasoning  powers. 

Fisher    says,  he    would    put    the  newspaper    on  his 

knee  and  point  to   the    part  he  wished  to  have  read. 

If  this  were  so,  it  would  only  prove  that  he  knew  how 

to  read,  but  nothing  at  all  respecting  his  mental  capacity. 

Without  noticing  other  acts  of  a   similar  character, 


THE   PAEISH   WILL    CASE.  327 

many  of  which  appear  in  the  evidence,  let  us  see  what 
inferences  may  be  drawn  from  the  manner  in  which  he 
was  managed  by  his  family  and  attendants. 

Wing-rove's  description  of  a  morning's  operations  — 
of  his  motions  with  his  hands  and  head  ;  his  "  yanne, 
yanne,  yanne ; "  his  searching  his  wife's  wardrobe,  though 
assured  that  it  contained  nothing  belonging  to  him;  his 
taking  up  his  pantaloons  one  after  another,  putting  them 
to  his  mouth,  and  repeating  his  customary  sound, "  yanne, 
yanne,  yanne  ; "  of  his  visit  to  the  market,  where  he 
would  sit  in  a  chair,  and  take  the  game  handed  him, 
and  put  it  to  his  mouth  as  he  did  the  pantaloons  — 
strikingly  illustrates  that  mental  decrepitude  so  fre- 
quently the  sequel  of  paralysis.  Many  other  scenes  in 
his  domestic  life  tell  the  same  story.  Clark,  the  coach- 
man, who  was  in  his  service  during  the  whole  of  his  ill- 
ness, says  it  was  his  custom  to  visit  Mr.  Parish  in  his 
room,  every  morning,  between  nine  and  ten  o'clock.  "  I 
would  go  in,"  he  says,  "  he  would  nod  his  head,  a  smile 
on  his  countenance,  and  then  he  would  put  up  one  finger 
or  two,  and  say, '  nea,  nea,'  or  '  aney,  aney,'  to  know  how 
the  horses  were  ;  then  he  would  hold  up  the  fingers 
again,  just  repeat  it ;  then  I  would  ask  him  if  it  was 
about  feed  ;  I  would  tell  him  the  horses  were  very  well, 
and  I  had  plenty  of  feed  ;  then  I  would  say,  '  Good-by, 
Mr.  Parish,'  and  then  he  would  nod  his  head,  a  smile  on 
his  countenance,  and  say,  '  Neay,  neay,  neay,'  as  much 
as  to  say  '  Good-by  ;  '  I  took  it  for  that."  Henry  Dela- 
field  says  that  it  was  his  custom  to  drive  out  with  him 
on  Sundays,  and  that  when  they  drove  down  town  the 
carriage  would  stop  near  his  stores  in  Wall,  Pearl, 
Water,  and  Pine  Streets.  "  He  would  point  at  the  build- 
ing ;  then  looking  at  me  inquisitively,  I  would  ask  him  if 
he  wished  any  information  about  the  building;  he  would 


328  THE   PAHISH   WILL   CASE. 

say,  yes ;  I  would  then  tell  him  the  building  appeared 
to  be  in  order  and  all  occupied.'7 

Mr.  Wiley  says,  that  when  he  visited  him  at  Hell 
Gate,  as  he  often  did,  "  I  would  recount  the  business  of 
the  day  in  the  city,  such  as  I  would  think  would  be  in- 
teresting to  him."  "  How  long  a  time,"  he  was  asked, 
"  would  you  spend  in  talking  with  him  ?  "  "  From  two 
to  five  minutes,"  was  the  reply. 

The  only  possible  theory  whereby  all  these  indications 
of  mental  infirmity  can  be  explained  consistently  with  the 
supposition  that  his  mind  was  unimpaired,  is,  that  being 
unable  to  express  his  thoughts  by  means  of  speech  he 
necessarily  appeared  deficient  in  understanding.  This 
theory  receives  but  slender  support  from  the  facts  in 
the  case,  and  the  general  experience  of  men.  Let  the 
question  be  put  to  any  one  in  the  full  possession  of  his 
faculties  :  "  Were  you  to  be  suddenly  deprived  of  the 
power  of  speaking,  and  of  the  use  of  your  right  hand, 
your  mind  remaining  unaffected,  do  you  suppose  that, 
for  six  or  seven  years,  you  would  continue  as  incapable 
of  making  known  your  thoughts  as  Mr.  Parish  was  ?  " 
There  certainly  would  be  but  one  answer  to  that  ques- 
tion. A  tolerable  facility  of  writing  with  the  left  hand 
could  be  obtained  by  a  little  practice,  and  in  the  mean 
time  a  dictionary,  block  letters,  hieroglyphics,  and  maps, 
would  enable  him  to  convey  his  meaning  without  fear 
of  mistake.  Every  day  would  also  witness  an  improve- 
ment in  the  use  of  signs  and  gestures.  In  every  actual 
case  of  this  description  on  record  (i.e.,  mere  loss  of 
speech),  so  far  as  I  know,  the  integrity  of  the  mind  was 
shown  either  by  what  the  patient  did,  or  by  the  ideas 
communicated  in  the  manner  here  mentioned.  In  one, 
the  patient,  a  collector  of  taxes,  pursued  his  customary 
duties ;  in  another,  a  blacksmith  went  to  his  shop,  and 


THE   PARISH  WILL   CASE.  329 

gave  directions  to  his  workmen ;  in  another,  an  old  gentle- 
man continued  to  enjoy  his  game  at  whist  as  much  as 
ever.1  The  facts  that  through  this  whole  period  of 
six  years  or  more  Mr.  Parish  never  wrote,  unless, 
indeed,  it  might  be  that  he  wrote  his  own  name,  in  a  few 
instances, —  a  fact  not  clearly  established  ;  that  his  signs 
and  motions  were  very  few,  not  one  of  them  having  an 
unmistakable  meaning ;  and  that,  notwithstanding  his 
great  desire  at  times  to  make  known  his  wishes,  he  fre- 
quently failed,  much  to  his  own  discomfort  and  irritation, 
render  the  conclusion  unavoidable  that  his  mind  was 
reduced  to  a  very  low  grade  of  dementia,  —  that  state 
in  which  its  operations  consist  of  a  few  feeble,  disjointed 
efforts  of  perception  and  memory.  His  whole  panto- 
mime consisted  of  a  nod  and  shake  of  the  head,  and  a 
motion  in  which  he  raised  his  left  hand  (with  two  fingers 
pointing  upward,  and  the  rest  closed  on  the  palm) 
towards  his  mouth,  and  finally  rested  his  fingers  upon 
his  teeth.  The  nod  and  shake  of  the  head  were  sup- 
posed by  some  to  indicate  assent  and  dissent,  and  his 
communication  of  ideas  was  confined  entirely  to  making 
one  of  these  motions  in  reply  to  any  question  what- 
ever. Thus  every  thought  or  wish  attributed  to  him 
originated  with  somebody  else.  This,  of  course,  might 
not  be  objectionable,  necessarily,  provided  there  could 
be  no  doubt  respecting  the  meaning  of  these  motions, 
and  also  that  the  questions  were  clearly  understood. 
Kernochan  and  Folsom,  however,  state  that  the  same 
question  repeated  after  a  short  interval,  or  in  different 
terms,  elicited  both  the  nod  and  the  shake.     Jones,  the 

1  For  cases  of  this  kind,  see  Pinel,  Sur  l'Alienation,  90 ;  Kay,  Med. 
Jurisprud.  of  Insanity,  p.  163  ;  Cooke  on  Nervous  Diseases,  p.  246,  Boston 
ed.,  1824;  Ed.  Phrenological  Journal,  II.  410;  III.  316;  IX.  17;  IX. 
471;   X.  352. 


330  THE   PARISH    WILL   CASE. 

tailor,  makes  a  similar  statement.  In  regard  to  the 
motion  of  the  hand,  Kernochan  says  that  those  about 
him  supposed  that  he  meant  by  it  to  invite  suggestions, 
or  gain  information,  but  that  he  could  never  make  that 
out  with  any  certainty.  In  reply  to  Mr.  Tileston's  propo- 
sition to  hire  his  United  States  stock,  it  seems  that  he 
made  this  motion,  or  something  very  like  it,  whereupon 
Mr.  Tileston  says,  "  I  believed  that  he  intended  to  convey 
the  idea  that  he  required  $2,000  per  annum  for  the  loan 
of  the  stock,  which  was  confirmed  by  Mrs.  Parish  saying 
that  that  was  exactly  what  he  intended  to  convey." 
Gibson  states  that  when  he  solicited  from  him  a  sub- 
scription to  some  charity,  he  made  this  motion,  and  that 
Mrs.  Parish,  who  was  present,  immediately  asked  if  he 
meant  $200 ;  to  which  he  assented,  bowing  his  head. 

By  some  of  the  witnesses  it  was  stated  that  he,  at 
times,  said,  "  oh,  dear,"  and  "  yes,"  and  "  no,"  quite  dis- 
tinctly ;  but  Kernochan,  who  visited  him  more  or  less 
frequently,  during  his  whole  illness,  says  that  he  never 
heard  him  utter  an  articulate  sound.  He  was  in  the 
habit  of  making  a  few  inarticulate  sounds,  always  re- 
peating them  rapidly,  but  as  each  witness  expresses  the 
sound  in  his  own  way,  there  is  some  doubt  as  to  their 
number  and  identity.  As  written  by  them,  they  are 
"yanne,  aney,  yah,  neay,  yey,  yet,  nay,  nan,  nin,  niah, 
nich,"  and  some  others.  The  first  five  or  six  were  prob- 
ably the  same  sounds  differently  rendered  by  different 
persons,  and  by  some  supposed  to  express  assent,  as 
the  others  were  supposed  to  express  dissent.  This, 
certainly,  was  not  always  their  meaning,  for  some  of 
them  were  used  when  he  was  irritated ;  and  at  other 
times  the  same  sounds  were  uttered  when  he  was  un- 
der no  excitement.  Some  of  them  were  regarded  by 
some  of  the  witnesses  as  equivalents  of  yes  or  no,  but 


THE   PARISH   WILL   CASE.  331 

they  seem  to  have  been  used  at  times  when  he  was  sup- 
posed to  have  the  power  of  uttering  distinctly  those 
words.  It  is  certain  that  the  nod  and  shake  of  the  head 
were  not  always  accompanied  by  any  sound,  articulate  or 
otherwise.  The  most  probable  conclusion  is,  that  these 
inarticulate  utterances  had  no  meaning  at  all,  but  were 
merely  ejaculatory  sounds  accompanying  the  feeling  or 
emotion  of  the  moment. 

On  the  question  of  Mr.  Parish's  mental  capacity,  these 
signs  and  sounds  are  not  without  great  significance. 
Considered  under  any  possible  aspect  of  the  case,  it  is 
quite  impossible  to  believe  that  a  person  in  the  full  posses- 
sion of  his  mind,  though  without  the  power  of  speech  or 
of  his  right  arm,  would  not,  during  the  space  of  six  or 
seven  years,  have  acquired  greater  facility  in  the  com- 
munication of  his  ideas. 

The  moral  traits  which  made  their  appearance  after 
the  attack  are  also  very  significant  in  this  connection. 
Some  degree  of  irritability  is  not  an  uncommon  sequel 
of  paralysis,  and  does  not  necessarily  imply  intellectual 
impairment.  But  in  this  case  there  was  a  kind  of  petu- 
lance and  of  anger,  never  exhibited  in  connection  with 
soundness  of  mind.  It  was  not  merely  excessive  and 
frequent,  but  irrelevant  and  puerile.  It  was  the  anger 
of  a  child,  and  signified  as  plainly  as  any  other  fact  in 
the  case  that  the  manly,  vigorous,  and  well-balanced 
mind  of  Henry  Parish  had  been  reduced  by  the  shock  of 
disease  to  a  lower  level  than  that  of  the  feeblest  child's. 
Dashing  at  and  striking  his  wife,  with  other  manifes- 
tations of  childish  displeasure,  seem  to  have  been  a 
frequent  incident ;  and  many  witnesses  speak  of  his  ex- 
hibiting irritation  when  the  people  about  him  failed  to 
ascertain  his  wishes.  The  scene  at  Root's,  where  the 
violence  of  his  movements,  occasioned  solely   by    his 


332  THE   PAEISH   WILL   CASE. 

wife's  not  returning  to  the  carriage  the  moment  he  ex- 
pected her,  attracted  the  attention  of  the  passers-by,  was 
a  striking  illustration  of  this  trait  of  disease.  And  so 
was  his  conduct  with  the  box,  as  related  by  Dr.  Markoe. 
On  this  occasion,  after  much  questioning,  which  failed 
to  elicit  his  wishes,  his  wife  asked  if  he  wished  her  to 
get  a  certain  box ;  "  and  as  soon  as  this  suggestion  was 
made  to  him,  he  assented  to  it  most  vehemently."  Accord- 
ingly, the  box  was  obtained  from  the  bank  and  placed 
in  his  lap  ;  but,  says  the  doctor, "  he  was  very  much  dis- 
pleased with  something  connected  with  the  presentation  ; 
the  box  was  left  unopened,  and  conveyed  back  to  the 
bank  that  same  afternoon."  Another  witness  present 
says  he  threw  it  upon  the  floor,  and  pushed  it  about 
with  his  hand.  Is  it  possible  that  a  person  of  sound 
mind,  or  any  mind  at  all,  would  indulge  in  such  conduct 
as  this  ?  He  is  supposed  to  be  exceedingly  anxious  to 
obtain  his  will ;  and  when,  after  much  trouble,  he  has 
succeeded  in  getting  it  within  his  grasp,  he  dashes  it 
upon  the  floor  unopened,  and  cares  for  it  no  more  ! 

It  would  appear  that  many  persons  of  intelligence, 
education,  and  knowledge  of  the  world,  who  visited  Mr. 
Parish  more  or  less  frequently,  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  his  mind  was  not  materially  impaired ;  that  he  under- 
stood any  proposition  made  to  him,  and  was  capable  of 
transacting  business. 

This  fact  may  be  easily  explained  without  discredit- 
ing their  honesty  or  sagacity.  They  arrived  at  their 
conclusion  through  a  series  of  errors,  both  of  fact  and 
opinion,  which  any  one  might  readily  commit  who  had 
no  practical  knowledge  of  abnormal  states  of  mind.  To 
form  a  correct  opinion  in  a  case  of  doubtful  sanity  re- 
quires, in  addition  to  this  kind  of  knowledge,  a  mind  free 
from  bias,  and  full  opportunitiei  of  observation.     Few, 


THE   PAEISH    WILL   CASE.  333 

if  any,  of  the  gentlemen  who  bore  testimony  to  the 
mental  capacity  of  Mr.  Parish  possessed  these  qualifica- 
tions. They  called  on  him,  some  for  business,  and  some 
for  old  acquaintance  sake.  They  were  impressed,  in 
the  outset,  with  the  idea  that  he  labored  under  no 
other  disability  than  the  loss  of  the  power  of  speech  ; 
and  for  the  most  of  them,  if  they  entertained  any  sus- 
picion of  the  correctness  of  this  impression,  it  would 
have  been  neither  convenient  nor  proper  to  test  the 
measure  of  his  capacity  by  appropriate  means.  He 
greeted  them  with  a  look  of  recognition,  and  perhaps 
a  shake  of  the  hand,  and  they  put  to  him  questions 
respecting  his  health  or  a  matter  of  business.  To  these 
he  replied  by  a  motion  of  the  head,  to  which  they  very 
naturally  affix  the  same  meaning  that  they  would  to 
a  similar  motion  in  any  other  person.  Any  doubt  on 
the  point  is  removed  at  once  by  the  suggestion  of 
others,  who  are  supposed  to  be  familiar  with  all  his 
signs  and  sounds,  and  perfectly  to  understand  their 
meaning;  and  they  go  away  quite  satisfied  that  he 
understood  every  thing  they  said,  and  was  capable  of 
understanding  a  great  deal  more  that  was  not  said.  The 
conversation,  if  such  it  may  be  called,  was  confined, 
with  one  or  two  exceptions,  to  simple  ordinary  matters 
which  required  no  exercise  of  thought,  and  which  were 
within  the  comprehension  of  any  degree  of  mind  not 
unequivocally  imbecile.  Matters  of  greater  moment,  re- 
quiring some  effort  of  the  reasoning  powers,  such  as 
testamentary  dispositions  would  imply,  were  never  in- 
troduced. 

It  will  be  observed  that  these  persons  also  committed 
the  common  mistake  of  supposing  that  if  Mr.  Parish 
understood  the  terms  of  a  question  he  necessarily  un- 
derstood its  merits.     This  is  not  true  of  sane  people 


334  THE    PARISH   WILL   CASE. 

always,  while  nothing  is  more  common  among  the  insane 
than  expressions  of  assent  or  dissent  in  reply  to  propo- 
sitions far  beyond  their  comprehension.  In  every  in- 
stitution for  the  insane  may  be  found  patients  with  the 
dress  and  deportment  of  gentlemen,  performing  all  the 
little  commonplaces  of  life  with  unexceptionable  correct- 
ness, but  ready  to  assent  to  any  proposition  however 
absurd.  Without  the  careful  application  of  some  test, 
most  persons  would  conclude  that  these  patients,  who 
replied  so  promptly  with  a  yes  or  no  to  the  question 
asked  them,  really  understood  the  subject  talked  about. 
Thus,  when  asked  to  purchase  the  paper  of  a  certain 
mercantile  house,  Mr.  Parish  might  have  recognized  the 
name,  estimated  the  sum  correctly,  and  been  conscious 
that  a  bargain  was  to  be  made,  without  having  any  clear 
idea  of  the  standing  of  the  house,  -the  nature  of  the 
security,  or  the  actual  value  of  the  paper. 

In  interpreting  the  meaning  of  such  signs  and  sounds 
as  Mr.  Parish  used  in  his  interviews  with  these  gentle- 
men, it  is  obvious  there  would  be  much  room  for  the 
play  of  the  imagination.  Even  careful  and  cultivated 
minds  might  easily  be  led  astray  by  some  casual  bias, 
and  thus  have  mistaken  their  own  fancies  for  actual 
facts.  Mr.  Isaac  H.  Brown,  in  describing  one  of  his 
interviews  with  him,  says  that  he  held  up  his  hand  with 
the  first  two  fingers  crossed,  signifying,  as  he  understood 
it,  that  he  wished  Mrs.  Parish  to  give  him  (Brown)  ten 
dollars.  Mr.  James  Watson  Webb  says  that,  on  meet- 
ing him  once  and  referring  to  a  former  acquaintance 
abroad,  he  burst  into  tears,  indicating,  as  he  (Webb) 
supposed,  his  inability  to  speak.  The  Rev.  Dr.  Taylor 
speaks  of  his  "  sensible  and  intelligent  replies,"  and 
Major  Delafield  of  his  "  complaining  of  his  sight,"  and 
of  "  his  eye  beaming  with  intelligence."      So  difficult 


THE   PARISH   WILL   CASE.  335 

it  is  even  for  the  most  honest  and  sagacious  to  refrain 
from  mixing  up  their  own  inferences  with  the  impres- 
sions made  upon  their  senses. 

During  the  period  in  question  Mr.  Parish  was  attended 
by  several  physicians  for  some  bodily  ailment :  and  these 
gentlemen,  though  not  professing  to  be  particularly  con- 
versant with  mental  disease,  and  though  at  the  time  of 
their  professional  attendance  they  made  no  investigation 
of  mental  condition,  were  requested,  on  their  examination 
before  the  Surrogate,  to  state  their  opinions  respecting 
it.  Their  opinions  are  entitled  to  most  respectful  con- 
sideration, but  can  claim  our  assent  only  so  far  as  they 
are  supported  by  facts.  Whether  a  certain  person  is 
sane  or  insane,  imbecile  or  demented,  is  a  question  not 
to  be  decided  by  vague  impressions,  or  a  superficial 
observation,  but  by  facts  sufficiently  numerous,  definite, 
and  clear,  to  admit  of  but  one  construction  by  those  who 
are  qualified  by  their  studies  and  experience  to  appre- 
ciate them  properly.  Dr.  Johnston,  who  visited  him 
professionally  from  the  beginning  of  the  attack  till  the 
27th  August  next,  thought  he  understood  the  questions 
put  to  him  about  his  ailments  ;  but  the  Doctor  declined 
to  express  any  opinion  respecting  his  mental  condition 
generally.  Drs.  Wilkes,  Dubois,  Markoe,  and  Delafield, 
who  visited  him  more  or  less  frequently  (the  two  latter 
during  the  greater  part  of  the  period  in  question,  and 
the  two  former  during  a  few  weeks  only  for  affections 
of  the  eyes),  concur  in  the  opinion  that  his  mind  was 
unimpaired  by  his  disease.  The  kind  of  facts  which 
led  them  to  this  result  has  been  already  indicated  and 
examined.  Nothing  stronger  is  adduced.  Indeed,  few 
of  those  facts  were  witnessed  personally  by  any  one  of 
these  gentlemen;  and  the  only  ground  on  which  they  can 
claim  some  confidence  in  their  opinion  must  be  that  im- 


THE   PARISH    WILL   CASE. 

pression  which  was  made  upon  them  by  signs  or  sounds 
that  cannot  well  be  imitated,  or  by  facts  which,  while 
they  might  be  well  enough  described,  might  be  differ- 
ently interpreted  by  others.  It  cannot  be  denied  that 
this  may  be  legitimate  ground  for  an  opinion.  Facts 
which  indicate  little  or  nothing  to  one  person  may  be 
pregnant  with  meaning  to  another.  Still  they  should  be 
facts,  and  admit  of  an  accurate  description  ;  otherwise, 
the  opinions  that  are  founded  upon  them  cannot  obtain 
the  confidence  of  others.  Such  facts,  though  they  be 
more  significant  to  one  and  less  to  another,  will  at  last 
be  appreciated  at  their  true  value.  Dr.  Markoe  states 
that  at  an  early  period  he  and  Dr.  Delafield  recognized 
the  importance  of  the  question  respecting  Mr.  Parish's 
mental  condition,  and  that  they  had  several  consultations 
about  it;  and  yet,  in  reply  to  the  question,  "  Did  you  ever 
make  any  examination  of  Mr.  Parish,  or  apply  any  test 
to  him,  for  the  exclusive  purpose  of  ascertaining  the 
state  of  his  mind  ?  "  he  says,  "  I  never  did  in  any  shape 
or  way."  This  is  to  be  regretted.  Many  insane  persons 
are  free  enough  in  their  communications  to  render  ex- 
periments and  tests  unnecessary ;  but  Mr.  Parish's  case 
was  just  one  of  those  where  the  spontaneous  manifesta- 
tions are  so  obscure  and  uncertain,  that  nothing  less  than 
a  course  of  systematic  observations,  managed  expressly 
for  this  purpose,  could  establish  the  fact  of  mental 
soundness  against  all  the  presumptive  evidence  to  the 
contrary.  The  Doctor  puts  it  forth  as  one  of  the  grounds 
of  his  opinion,  by  implication  at  least,  that  Mr.  Parish 
"  possessed  the  faculties  of  memory,  perception,  com- 
parison, judgment,  and,  in  fine,  all  the  ordinary  faculties 
of  the  mind."  What  is  meant  exactly  by  this  last  phrase 
is  not  very  obvious,  but  surely  it  cannot  be  denied  that 
all  the  faculties  here  mentioned  are  manifested  more  or 


THE   PARISH   WILL   CASE.  337 

less  in  almost  every  form  of  mental  derangement,  in- 
cluding even  imbecility  and  dementia.  The  fact  proves 
nothing  as  to  the  soundness  or  strength  of  the  mind.  In 
any  case  of  doubtful  mental  condition,  the  question  at 
issue  is  not  whether  the  patient  possesses  these  facul- 
ties, but  whether  they  exist  in  their  normal  state.  Dr. 
Delafield  also  says  that  he  never  applied  a  test  expressly 
for  the  purpose  of  ascertaining  Mr.  Parish's  mental  con- 
dition, for  the  reason  that  he  had  no  doubt  about  it,  and 
that  every  visit  he  made  was  a  test.  Such  a  reason  is 
calculated  to  produce  surprise  rather  than  conviction. 
Dr.  Delafield  must  be  aware  that  in  any  scientific  in- 
quiry the  object  is  to  obtain  a  degree  of  proof  satisfac- 
tory, not  only  to  the  inquirer  himself,  but  to  every  one 
else.  He  is  quite  sure,  no  doubt,  that  Mr.  Parish  could 
read,  but  the  fact  is  disputed  by  others ;  and  yet  how 
easily  it  might  have  been  placed  beyond  the  reach  of 
contradiction  by  some  simple  test !  We  are  therefore 
forced  to  conclude  that  the  medical  testimony,  laboring 
as  it  does  under  these  defects,  cannot  affect  any  position 
respecting  Mr.  Parish's  mental  condition  which  the 
other  testimony  warrants  us  in  taking. 

Before  closing  my  remarks  on  the  medical  testi- 
mony, I  would  advert  to  Dr.  Markoe's  explanation  of 
Mr.  Parish's  inability  or  unwillingness  to  learn  to  write, 
though  perhaps  there  would  be  no  danger  of  its  pass- 
ing for  more  than  it  is  worth,  even  if  left  unnoticed 
altogether.  It  seems  that  within  a  few  months  after  the 
attack,  various  trials  were  made  to  teach  Mr.  Parish  to 
write  with  his  left  hand,  but,  beyond  writing  his  name 
wholly  or  partly  a  few  times  perhaps,  nothing  was  accom- 
plished. After  a  number  of  trials,  estimated  by  Dr. 
Delafield  at  from  five  to  twenty,  he  refused  to  proceed, 
and  at  no  subsequent  time  were  the  trials  resumed.  This 

22 


THE   PARISH   WILL   CASE. 

unwillingness  to  persevere  in  the  attempt  to  obtain  a 
means  of  communication,  which  would  have  been  of 
inestimable  value,  is  attributed  by  Dr.  Markoe  to  "  his 
early  discouragement  acting  upon  a  somewhat  peculiar 
temperament."  This  explains  nothing.  It  only  substi- 
tutes one  difficulty  for  another.  The  proper  question  is, 
why  a  man  like  Mr.  Parish,  naturally  of  a  strong  will  and 
much  firmness,  and  supposed  to  be  in  full  possession  of 
his  mind,  on  finding  himself  deprived  of  the  power  of 
speech,  should  become  so  easily  discouraged  in  attempt- 
ing to  learn  what  was  so  necessary,  not  only  to  his 
interests,  but  to  his  hourly  convenience  and  comfort. 
Any  one  who  will  make  the  experiment  will  find  that  it 
is  not  impossible  to  write  with  the  left  hand,  even  at 
the  first  attempt,  and  that  a  little  practice  will  enable 
him,  as  it  has  many  others,  to  write  with  considerable 
facility.  Another  and  an  insuperable  objection  to  Dr. 
Markoe's  theory  is,  that  it  does  not  explain  Mr.  Parish's 
unwillingness  to  make  up  words  by  means  of  the  sepa- 
rate letters  of  the  alphabet  on  cards.  This  device  was 
tried  after  the  attempts  to  induce  him  to  write  were 
abandoned,  but  with  no  better  success.  He  would  not 
try  to  use  them,  and  refused  to  have  any  thing  to  do 
with  them.  I  find  it  impossible  to  account  for  his  re- 
fusal to  avail  himself  of  so  simple  and  easy  a  means  of 
communication,  upon  any  theory  which  supposes  him  to 
have  been  able  to  read,  and  competent  to  the  transaction 
of  the  very  smallest  matter  of  business.  Unquestionably 
he  was  easily  discouraged,  and  the  cause  of  it  is  obvious 
enough.  The  same  stroke  which  shattered  his  intellect 
also  deprived  him  of  his  firmness,  his  perseverance,  his 
resolution,  his  manliness,  and,  in  respect  to  all  these 
qualities,  reduced  him  to  the  condition  of  a  child.  This 
statement  is   confirmed    on    almost  every  page  of  the 


THE   PARISH   WILL   CASE.  339 

testimony.  Every  witness  who  saw  much  of  his  daily 
life,  and  some  who  saw  but  little  of  it,  speak  of  his  fre- 
quent tears,  his  petulance,  his  freaks  of  ill-humor,  and 
his  gusts  of  passion,  characterized  in  every  instance  by 
extreme  puerility.  How  much  of  this  unwillingness  or 
inability  to  learn  is  fairly  attributable  to  discouragement 
is  not  very  obvious.  It  scarcely  required  the  resolu- 
tion of  a  child  to  construct  words  with  the  separate 
letters  of  the  alphabet ;  and  his  refusal  to  make  the 
attempt  admits  of  no  other  explanation  than  extreme 
insensibility  to  the  importance  of  the  object, —  an  expla- 
nation utterly  incompatible,  of  course,  with  the  measure 
of  understanding  which  is  claimed  for  him. 

Enough  has  been  said,  perhaps,  to  prove  the  mental 
impairment  of  Henry  Parish  during  the  latter  years  of 
his  life,  but  it  may  be  proper  also  to  scrutinize  the  per- 
formance of  those  acts  which  are  the  subject  of  the 
present  contest.  Here,  if  anywhere,  we  ought  to  meet 
with  unequivocal  traits  of  a  judgment  and  sagacity  equal 
to  the  occasion,  —  unquestionable  proof  that  he  fully 
understood  both  the  terms  and  the  merits  of  the  various 
testamentary  dispositions  which  he  adopted.  They  might 
counterbalance  many  facts  of  an  opposite  character  ob- 
served under  other  circumstances,  if  not  turn  the  scales 
decidedly  in  his  favor.  The  actual  facts,  however,  are 
of  the  same  complexion  as  the  rest. 

Mr.  Lord,  who  prepared  all  these  codicils  and  wit- 
nessed their  subscription,  says  that  in  each  instance 
he  received  the  necessary  instructions,  not  from  Mr. 
Parish,  but  from  another  person  deeply  interested  in 
their  provisions,  and  present  on  the  occasions  when  the 
various  dispositions  were  discussed  and  adopted.  Each 
particular  provision  was  read  aloud,  and  Mr.  Parish  was 
asked  if  he  acknowledged  that  as  a  part  of  his  will.    He 


340  THE   PARISH   WILL   CASE. 

replied  by  nodding  or  shaking  his  head,  implying  thereby 
assent  or  dissent,  and  that  provision  was  retained  or 
rejected  accordingly.  These  motions  were  accompanied 
by  a  sound  represented  as  being,  on  the  occasion  of  the 
second  codicil,  a  pretty  distinct  yes  or  no,  but  on  the 
occasion  of  the  first  they  were  supposed  to  be  only  an 
attempt,  scarcely  successful,  to  imitate  those  words.  By 
the  second  codicil  he  gave  to  his  wife  various  stocks, 
most  of  them  then  standing  in  her  name  (having  been 
purchased  by  the  receipts  from  his  property  since  his 
attack),  and  also  gave  a  considerable  sum  to  various  chari- 
table institutions.  Considerable  difficulty  occurred, osten- 
sibly, in  perfecting  the  different  arrangements  according 
to  his  wishes.  When  desirous  of  making  a  communica- 
tion, the  usual  practice  was  resorted  to  of  mentioning 
interrogatively  various  things  ;  and,  if  the  right  one 
happened  to  be  hit  on,  it  received  his  assent,  and  was 
supposed  to  express  his  will.  It  was  not  until  after 
several  interviews  and  much  ineffectual  questioning, 
that  this  codicil  was  finally  executed.  Mr.  Lord,  ob- 
serving that  this  new  arrangement  of  the  property 
would  place  Mr.  Daniel  Parish  in  an  awkward  position 
as  one  of  the  executors,  suggested  the  revocation  of 
his  appointment  as  executor,  and  of  the  legacy  of 
110,000  that  accompanied  it.  This  suggestion  was 
adopted.  At  the  re-execution  of  the  first  codicil,  Mr. 
Lord  was  told  by  Mrs.  Parish  that  Mr.  Parish  wished 
to  revoke  the  legacies  to  his  nephews  and  nieces ;  but 
he  says  (although  Mr.  Parish  assented  to  it  in  the  usual 
way)  that  he  dissuaded  her  (^frs.  Parish)  from  pressing 
it,  because  it  would  fatigue  and  disturb  him,  and  might 
as  well  be  done  at  some  other  time.  "  In  this  he  (Mr. 
Parish)  acquiesced,  with  an  expression  rather  of  pain 
or  regret."      At  the   making  of  the  third    codicil,  be- 


THE   PARISH   WILL   CASE.  341 

tween  three  or  four  years  after,  the  same  suggestion 
was  made  again,  and  again  Mr.  Lord  dissuaded,  telling 
Mr.  Parish,  "  that  would  be  harsh." 

A  careful  examination  of  the  circumstances  connected 
with  the  preparation  and  execution  of  these  codicils 
reveals  some  incidents  strikingly  incompatible  with 
soundness  of  mind. 

At  the  execution  of  the  first  codicil,  and  also  at  its  re- 
execution  a  few  months  afterwards,  neither  the  will  nor 
a  copy  was  before  them.  This,  certainly,  is  not  the  way 
such  things  are  usually  managed  ;  and  it  appears  still 
more  strange,  when  we  bear  in  mind  that  either  just  be- 
fore its  execution,  or  between  that  and  the  re-execution, 
Mr.  Parish  was  supposed  by  those  around  him  to  be 
exceedingly  anxious  to  get  possession  of  his  will  ;  yet 
when  the  box  containing  it  was  placed  in  his  hands, 
from  some  unaccountable  caprice  it  was  thrown  upon 
the  floor,  and  returned  to  the  bank  unopened.  Such 
conduct  admits  of  no  other  explanation  than  that  of 
insanity. 

The  fact,  too,  that  it  was  left  for  Mr.  Lord  to  suggest 
the  revocation  of  the  appointment  of  Daniel  Parish  as 
executor,  shows  a  dulness  of  perception  that  could 
hardly  have  been  expected  from  Henry  Parish  in  the 
normal  condition  of  his  mind. 

Then,  again,  his  course  respecting  the  proposed  revo- 
cation of  the  legacies  to  his  nephews  and  nieces  deserves 
attention.  At  the  making  of  the  first  codicil  he  is, 
apparently,  very  desirous  of  revoking  these  legacies, 
but  is  easily  diverted  from  his  purpose.  Four  years 
after,  when  he  is  engaged  in  making  new  dispositions  of 
his  property  (having  meanwhile  allowed  the  matter  to 
pass  over  in  silence),  he  again  reverts  to  it,  and  is  again 
turned  from  it  by  Mr.  Lord.     Now,  all  this  a  perfectly 


342  THE   PARISH   WILL   CASE. 

sane  man  might  do  j  but  in  one  of  doubtful  sanity,  and 
surrounded  by  those  whose  interests  were  advanced  by 
these  contested  changes  in  his  testamentary  dispositions, 
it  certainly  has  a  very  suspicious  appearance. 

Again,  it  is  not  denied  that  every  item  in  these  con- 
tested codicils  originated  in  the  mind  of  some  one  else, 
though  sanctioned  and  adopted  ostensibly  by  him.  This, 
too,  might  occur  with  a  testator  of  unimpeachable  sound- 
ness ;  but  when  we  bear  in  mind  that  Mr.  Parish  was 
undeniably  unable  to  communicate  his  wishes  in  regard 
to  any  person  or  subject,  unless  such  person  or  subject 
were  first  mentioned  to  him,  then  it  is  obvious  that  these 
codicils  might  have  only  very  partially  expressed  his 
will,  — namely,  just  so  far  only  as  others  chose  to  help 
him  to  express  it.  True,  this  may  not  have  vitiated 
these  codicils  necessarily ;  but,  under  all  the  circum- 
stances of  the  case,  it  must  weaken  our  confidence  in 
his  testamentary  capacity. 

It  may  be  contended  perhaps,  that,  even  if  a  consid- 
erable amount  of  mental  impairment  were  proved,  he 
might  still  have  retained  mind  enough  to  constitute  what 
the  law  regards  as  a  testamentary  capacity.  What  this 
is  exactly,  has  never  been  authoritatively  decided ;  but 
it  has  been  a  favorite  doctrine  of  courts,  that,  in  case  of 
mental  decrepitude,  much  less  capacity  is  required  to 
make  a  will  than  to  make  a  contract,  and  that,  in  the 
exercise  of  the  testamentary  privilege,  men's  minds  are 
not  to  be  too  accurately  gauged.  As  the  recognition  of 
a  pretty  general  fact,  there  can  be  no  objection  to  the 
doctrine;  but  to  apply  it  as  a  universal  rule,  without 
discrimination,  would  be  unphilosophical  and  unjust. 

In  a  case  of  admitted  mental  impairment,  where  the 
extent  of  that  impairment  is  involved  in  doubt,  certain 
other  considerations  should  have  place  in  deciding  upon 


THE    PARISH    WILL    CASE.  343 

the  validity  of  a  testamentary  act  disputed  on  the  ground 
of  incapacity  in  the  alleged  testator.    Some  wills  require 
more  capacity  than  some  contracts  ;   and  many  a  man 
who  might  be  able  to  sell  houses  or  lands,  with  a  tol- 
erable   understanding   of  the   matter,  would  be  quite 
incapable  of  making  a  proper  and  judicious   distribu- 
tion of  a  large  estate  among  a  considerable  number  of 
relatives,  friends,  and  public  institutions.     So,  too,  the 
same  understanding  might  be  adequate  to  one  descrip- 
tion of  will  and  not  to  another.     A  man  having  a  small 
estate,  and  no  relatives  besides  his  wife  and  a  single 
child  to  leave  it  to,  might  be  safely  trusted  to  indicate 
the  proportions  he  would  wish  them  to  have,  but  would 
be   utterly  incompetent  to  devise   his   property   under 
wholly  different  circumstances  ;  viz.,  large   and  compli- 
cated  possessions,  and  a  host   of   relatives    with  very 
unequal  claims  on  his  bounty.     The  only  practical  prin- 
ciple is,  sufficient  capacity  for  the  occasion  ;  and  that 
implies,  in  the  testator,  a  memory  strong  enough  to  bring 
before  the  mind  all  those  who  would  naturally  be  remem- 
bered on  such  an  occasion,  judgment  enough  to  discrim- 
inate   fairly    between    their   respective    claims    on    his 
bounty,  together  with  a  knowledge   of   the    value    of 
property  and  the  relations  of  number.     And,  inasmuch 
as   the  moral  sentiments  are  often  weakened  and  per- 
verted by  the  same  disease  that  enfeebles  the  intellect, 
it  is  also  required  that  his  own  proper  intellectual  dis- 
cernment should    appear   by   affirmative    proofs    to   be 
unaffected  by  the  direct  and  special  influences  of  others 
holding  at  the  time  a  relation  to  the  individual  which 
made  him  dependent  upon  them  for  everything,  especially 
if  such  others  are  wholly  or  mainly  interested  in  the  con- 
tested act.     That  Mr.  Parish  had  not  sufficient  capacity 
for  the  occasion,  according  to    the   requirements  here 


344  THE   PAEISH   WILL   CASE. 

mentioned,  is,  I  believe,  abundantly  shown  by  the  facts  in 
evidence,  already  referred  to  concerning  the  testamen- 
tary acts  and  his  ordinary  mental- manifestations. 

The  conclusion  to  which  I  have  been  led  by  a  careful 
examination  of  the  evidence  in  this  case,  may  be  ex- 
pressed in  the  following  propositions  :  — 

In  consequence  of  the  apoplectic  attack  of  1849,  the 
power  of  speech  was  lost  and  the  mind  greatly  impaired 
during  the  rest  of  his  life. 

This  impairment  was  sufficient  to  render  him  incapa- 
ble of  transactions  requiring  any  exercise  of  thought. 

The  codicils  in  question  disposed  of  large  amounts 
of  property  in  various  ways,  and  required,  in  a  much 
higher  degree  than  can  be  supposed  to  have  been  pres- 
ent, the  exercise  of  memory,  judgment,  and  discretion,  — 
an  appreciation  of  the  numerous  claims  on  his  bounty, 
and  a  knowledge  of  numbers  and  quantities. 

The  mental  powers  here  indicated  were  not  possessed 
by  Mr.  Parish  subsequent  to  the  attack  in  July,  1849; 
and  consequently  these  codicils,  so  far  as  they  exhibit 
any  of  those  powers,  express,  not  the  will  of  Mr.  Parish, 
but  the  will  of  other  persons,  and  are  therefore  in- 
valid. 


THE    ANGELL   WILL   CASE. 


[Frequently  as  wills  are  disputed  on  the  score  of  mental  incompe- 
tence, the  rules  of  law  by  which  such  cases  have  been  adjudicated 
present  but  a  small  approach  to  harmony  of  opinion.  Considering 
the  many  forms  of  mental  disorder  and  the  imperfect  knowledge 
respecting  their  effect  on  the  mental  operations  possessed  by  those 
whose  duty  it  is  to  administer  the  law,  the  fact  could  hardly  have 
been  otherwise.  Not  that  legal  opinion  on  this  subject  is  quite  so 
unsettled  as  it  once  was ;  not  that  some  principles  may  not  now  be 
considered  as  generally  received.  No  court  would  presume  to  estab- 
lish the  will  of  a  man  who  had  disinherited  children,  brothers,  or 
sisters,  believing  them,  as  a  matter  of  delusion,  to  be  plotting  against 
his  life,  or  peace  of  mind,  however  sensible  and  prudent  he  might 
have  been  in  all  other  respects.  But  would  the  existence  of  partial 
insanity  in  any  form  whatever  be  regarded  as  sufficient  ground  for 
invalidating  a  will  which  did  not  recognize  some  very  distant  heir-at- 
law  ?  In  the  following  case,  the  reader  will  observe,  a  question  of 
this  character  had  to  be  met ;  and,  though  the  decision  may  have  been 
correct,  it  can  hardly  be  received  as  a  precedent  for  any  other  case 
with  conditions  not  very  like  its  own.  Exactly  how  far  in  the  line  of 
kindred  the  invalidating  effect  of  delusion  may  reach,  is  a  point 
that  yet  remains  to  be  settled. 

Well  settled,  however,  as  the  doctrine  respecting  the  legal  effect 
of  delusion  seems  to  be,  there  is  always  manifested,  in  cases  of  this 
kind,  a  lingering  apprehension  of  its  insufficiency,  especially  if  ac- 
companied by  indications  of  mental  vigor  and  clearness  in  other 
directions.  Hence  arises  a  strong  endeavor,  as  in  the  case  before  us, 
to  prove  that  the  disease  embraced  within  the  range  of  its  influence 
other  subjects  than  those  directly  connected  with  the  will.  Although 
the  testatrix  was  shown  to  have  harbored  most  gross  and  persistent 


346  THE   ANGELL   WILL   CASE. 

delusions  respecting  the  designs  of  her  relatives,  yet  she  seemed 
so  correct  on  many  other  subjects,  and  that  to  a  class  of  persons 
whose  culture  and  habits  of  observation  gave  much  weight  to  their 
impressions,  that  it  was  deemed  to  be  of  the  highest  importance  to 
show  that  her  insanity  was  exhibited  in  regard  to  other  persons  and 
things.  And  this  fact  being  satisfactorily  proved,  was,  probably,  no 
less  potent  in  shaping  the  verdict  of  the  jury,  than  the  principal 
delusion  itself;  though  it  would  have  hardly  sufficed  to  set  aside  a 
will  that  made  a  tolerably  natural  distribution  of  property  among  her 
relations.  However  this  may  be,  I  think  we  are  warranted,  by  our 
present  knowledge  of  the  effect  of  insanity  on  the  mental  operations, 
in  adopting  the  general  conclusion  of  this  notice,  that,  whatever  may 
be  the  mental  condition  of  the  testator  in  other  respects,  the  testa- 
mentary capacity  should  be  denied,  when  disease  of  any  grade  or 
form  has  been  allowed  to  obtrude  its  shadow  between  the  mind  of  the 
testator  and  the  natural  objects  of  his  bounty. 

Another  point  of  great  medico-legal  importance,  illustrated  in  this 
case,  is  the  essential  psychological  distinction  between  mistake  and 
delusion.  The  will  was  impugned  on  the  ground  of  delusions  enter- 
tained by  the  testatrix  respecting  the  designs  of  her  relatives,  who 
had  been  engaged,  for  more  than  one  generation,  as  she  supposed, 
in  defrauding  her  of  her  property  and  making  attempts  on  her  life. 
To  overthrow  this  position,  it  was  ingeniously  alleged  that  all  the 
notions  cited  as  indications  of  a  disordered  mind  were  fairly  de- 
duced from  a  very  natural  mistake  respecting  the  meaning  of  cer- 
tain expressions  contained  in  some  old  letters  of  her  uncle.  Other 
persons,  it  was  said,  would  have  adopted  the  same  construction  ;  more- 
over, an  effort  was  made  to  establish  the  facts  as  she  understood 
them.  This  argument  was  well  calculated  to  effect  its  purpose  with 
men  who  had  never  given  a  thought  to  such  subjects,  or  who  would 
have  been  not  much  wiser  if  they  had ;  but  it  has  no  support  in  our 
knowledge  of  insanity,  or  the  facts  of  the  case.  A  mistake  respecting 
a  state  of  facts  will  always  be  admitted  by  a  sane  person,  upon  ade- 
quate prouf  of  error.  The  false  belief  of  the  insane,  call  it  mis- 
take or  delusion,  is  never  relinquished.  No  array  of  proof,  no 
force  of  argument,  even  by  those  in  whom  they  always  had  the  fullest 
confidence,  can  make  the  slightest  impression.  On  the  contrary, 
they  cling  to  their  belief  all  the  more  firmly,  the  stronger  the  reasons 
offered  against  it.  Such  was  the  case  with  this  lady,  who  steadily 
resisted  to  the  last,  proofs  of  her  mistake,  if  so  it  may  be  called,  that 
would  have  been  all-powerful  with  any  sane  mind.     In  fact,  however, 


THE   AXGELL   WILL   CASE.  347 

she  had  contracted  this  belief  in  the  evil  designs  of  her  relatives  long 
before  she  met  those  old  letters.  They  only  made  it  a  little  more 
circumstantial.] 

To  the  medical  jurist,  no  class  of  cases  can  be  more 
interesting  than  that  of  wills  involving  questions  of 
mental  condition.  In  the  litigation  of  a  will,  a  wider 
range  of  inquiry  is  opened,  a  larger  variety  of  relations 
is  exposed,  than  is  permitted  or  required  in  that  of  a 
crime  or  a  contract.  The  investigation  may  extend  over 
a  lifetime,  and  be  pushed  into  the  inmost  recesses  of  the 
inner  life.  In  no  class  of  cases  is  there  more  needed  a 
familiar  acquaintance  with  the  operations  of  the  mind, 
sound  as  well  as  unsound,  in  order  to  reconcile  seeming 
discrepancies  of  testimony;  an  extensive  observation,  to 
show  the  full  significance  of  many  a  trait;  and  the  tact, 
springing  from  long  experience  and  sagacity,  that  can 
enable  one  to  appreciate  the  nicer  affections  of  mental 
competence  that  result  from  cerebral  disturbance.  In  the 
following  account  of  a  will-case  recently  tried  in  Provi- 
dence, the  psychologist  will  see  a  curious  exhibition  of 
mental  obliquities  extending  over  the  greater  part  of  a 
long  life,  the  jurist  will  see  some  old  principles  under 
new  phases,  and  the  general  reader  will  be  struck  by 
many  an  incident  which  gives  to  the  narrative  an  air  of 
the  strange  and  marvellous. 

In  the  year  1780,  Joseph  Angell  was  married  to  Desire 
Hopkins,  daughter  of  that  Commodore  Hopkins  who,  in 
the  Revolutionary  war,  dealt  the  first  successful  blow 
at  the  enemy  on  the  water.  The  match  was  not  a  happy 
one.  The  husband  proved  improvident  and  dissipated, 
left  his  family  some  seven  or  eight  years  after  the  mar- 
riage, and  went  to  Maryland,  where  he  engaged  in  teach- 
ing school.     Their  only  child  was  a  daughter,  Eliza,  the 


348  THE   ANGELL   WILL   CASE. 

testatrix  in  this  case,  born  in  1783.  In  1790,  the  deserted 
wife,  receiving  neither  aid  nor  comfort  from  her  spouse, 
obtained  a  divorce,  and  in  1793  married  Samuel  Leon- 
ard, a  prosperous  widower,  residing  in  Taunton,  Mass., 
with  three  children  by  a  former  wife.  By  the  last  mar- 
riage there  were  two  children,  both  of  whom  survived 
to  adult  age,  Samuel  and  John  B.  The  advent  of  the 
bride  and  her  child  into  the  family  of  her  second  hus- 
band was  not  followed  by  the  utmost  harmony,  and 
some  hard  feeling  apparently  existed  between  the  An- 
gells  and  Leonards  from  the  beginning  to  the  end.  In 
1807,  Mr.  L.  died,  and  in  1820  the  widow  with  her  own 
children  moved  back  to  Providence.  Two  years  after- 
wards, they  came  into  possession  of  the  Commodore 
Hopkins  estate  in  North  Providence,  and  there  they 
resided  ever  after.  In  1834,  Samuel  died  ;  in  1843,  the 
mother;  in  March,  1853,  John;  and  on  the  12th  of 
October,  1860,  the  testatrix. 

In  1846,  both  John  and  his  sister  made  their  wills,  in 
which  they  bequeathed  their  property  to  each  other. 
After  the  death  of  John,  she  was  in  possession  of  two 
considerable  estates,  one  in  Taunton,  derived  from  her 
step-father,  consisting  of  stores,  and  some  land  eligible 
for  building  in  the  outskirts  of  the  town ;  and  one  in 
North  Providence,  consisting  of  the  old  homestead,  a  few 
tenements,  a  mill-privilege,  and  some  230  acres  of  unoc- 
cupied land,  mostly  suitable  for  building-lots.  The  for- 
mer estate  was  taxed,  when  her  will  was  made,  at  $30,- 
000,  and  the  latter  at  $75,000. 

On  the  25th  of  April,  1854,  this  lady  executed  her 
will,  the  validity  of  which  is  now  contested.  In  this 
will  she  gives  an  annuity  of  $100  to  one  of  her  poor 
relations,  who  died  before  her  ;  an  annuity  of  $600  to  a 
cousin  residing  in  South  Carolina,  and  when  she  dies  an 


THE    AXGELL    WILL   CASE.  349 

annuity  of  $300  to  each  of  her  daughters  while  they 
remain  single  :  some  gold  watches  which  had  belonged 
to  her  step-father,  and  a  few  other  personal  effects,  such 
as  pistols,  rings,  sleeve-buttons,  to  his  grandchildren ; 
and  directs  her  executor  to  appropriate  to  each  of  her 
step-father's  two  sons  as  much  as  he  may  deem  necessary 
to  make  them  comfortable,  the  amount  not  to  exceed  $40 
per  month.  In  no  other  particular  does  she  recognize 
the  existence  of  relations.  She  gives  to  the  town  of 
North  Providence  a  lot  for  a  town-house,  with  certain  con- 
ditions, which  the  town  did  not  choose  to  accept.  With 
these  exceptions,  all  her  property  is  given,  in  trust,  to 
Rev.  Dr.  Wayland,  late  President  of  Brown  University, 
Rev.  Dr.  Caswell,  Professor  in  the  same,  and  Rev.  Dr. 
Granger,  then  minister  of  the  First  Baptist  Church,  and 
their  successors,  to  be  devoted  by  them  to  the  erection 
of  two  Baptist  Churches  with  parsonages  attached,  and 
to  the  support  of  a  minister  in  each.  One  is  to  be  on 
her  estate  in  Taunton,  the  other  on  her  estate  in  North 
Providence,  both  "  to  be  built  of  stone  of  suitable  dimen- 
sions,'7 in  "  a  plain  and  substantial  manner."  In  order 
to  build  and  support  the  former  church,  she  devotes  one 
of  the  Taunton  estates,  called  the  Barney  farm,  to  be  let, 
mortgaged,  or  sold,  as  the  trustees  may  deem  best.  To 
build  and  support  the  latter,  she  devotes  all  the  rest  of 
her  property,  after  all  charges  upon  the  estate  are  paid. 
If  the  "  rents,  profits,  and  proceeds"  thereof  "are  not 
sufficient  within  a  reasonable  time  to  pay  for  the  build- 
ing of  said  last  mentioned  church  and  parsonage,"  then 
the  trustees  are  directed  to  sell  as  much  of  her  Taunton 
estate  as  may  be  necessary  for  this  purpose.  In  no 
event,  however,  is  any  of  the  North  Providence  property 
to  be  sold.  These  objects  being  accomplished,  the  trus- 
tees are  directed  to  divide  the  residue  of  the  "  rents, 


350  THE   ANGELL   WILL   CASE. 

income,  and  profits  "  into  three  equal  parts,  one  to  be 
appropriated  by  them  to  "  the  support  and  education  of 
the  children,  male  and  female,  of  orthodox  Baptist  min- 
isters," one  to  "  the  support  and  education  of  the  chil- 
dren, male  and  female,  of  orthodox  Baptist  missionaries," 
and  the  other  to  "  the  support  and  education  of  young 
men  who  are  candidates  for  and  intend  to  become  min- 
isters of  the  orthodox  Baptist  Church."  The  trustees 
are  to  appoint  their  successors,  and  to  appropriate  from 
the  funds  of  the  estate  "  a  reasonable  compensation  for 
their  services." 

On  the  9th  of  July,  1855,  she  executed  a  codicil  in 
which  she  bequeaths  to  the  American  Colonization  So- 
ciety "  all  estates  and  property  of  every  kind  and  nature 
whatsoever,  which  may  come  to  me  directly  by  descent 
or  devise  from  my  father,  Joseph  Angell,  deceased, 
whether  the  same  be  situated  in  the  State  of  Virginia 
or  elsewhere." 

This  will  was  admitted  to  probate  by  the  Probate 
Court,  from  which  decision  the  heirs-at-law  appealed  to 
the  Supreme  Judicial  Court.  The  case  was  tried  in 
April,  1862,  but  the  jury  did  not  agree.  The  second  trial 
in  November  next  was  followed  by  the  same  result;  but 
on  the  third,  in  May  of  the  next  year,  the  jury  returned 
a  verdict  setting  aside  the  will  on  the  ground  of  insan- 
ity. The  trials  were  all  of  unprecedented  length,  the 
longest  occupying  five  weeks.  In  the  matter  of  evi- 
dence, the  trials  were  but  a  repetition  of  each  other, — 
certainly,  in  every  essential  point ;  and  therefore,  in 
making  up  this  account,  there  seemed  to  be  no  impro- 
priety in  using  the  evidence,  without  referring  precisely 
to  the  trial  in  which  it  appeared. 

The  first  trial  was  before  Chief  Justice  Ames ;  the 
second,  before  Mr.  Justice  Brayton  :  the  last,  before  Mr. 


THE   ANGELL   WILL   CASE.  351 

Justice  Bullock.  Counsel  for  the  appellants,  Blake, 
Matthewson,  B.  N.  Lapham,  C.  M.  Smith ;  for  the  appel- 
lees, Curry,  C.  I.  Reed,  of  Taunton,  W.  H.  Potter. 

The  testimony  of  the  appellants  disclosed  many  indi- 
cations of  mental  disorder,  the  most  prominent  of  which 
was  the  belief,  without  proof  and  against  proof,  that  her 
father,  who  died  within  a  few  years  after  he  left  Provi- 
dence, having  married  a  widow  supposed  to  be  wealthy, 
a  few  months  before  his  death,  had  left  her  a  large  estate, 
but  of  which  her  uncles,  then  living  in  Baltimore,  had 
somehow  got  possession,  and  transmitted  to  their  chil- 
dren. This  belief  she  entertained  during  at  least  the 
last  twenty  years  of  her  life.  Against  the  children  of 
these  uncles, — persons  of  the  highest  respectability, 
whom  she  was  in  the  habit  of  meeting  frequently,  and 
some  of  them  familiarly,  —  she  made  it  a  theme  of  bitter 
reproach  that  they  were  living  in  ease  and  luxury  on 
property  that  had  been  stolen  from  her.  Whenever  one 
of  them  showed  signs  of  prosperity,  whether  it  was  in 
building  a  block  of  stores,  in  putting  children  to  school, 
or  furnishing  a  house,  she  declared  it  was  derived  from 
her  property.  When  one  of  them  went  South  in  the 
way  of  business,  she  declared  it  was  for  the  purpose  of 
visiting  those  plantations  which  rightfully  belonged  to 
her.  All  this  she  believed  without  a  tittle  of  proof  that 
her  father  left  a  single  dollar  behind  him  for  her  or  any- 
body else.  For  a  part  of  the  time,  at  least,  she  had 
abundant  proof  that  he  died  poor,  and  that  the  widow 
whom  he  married  was  almost  as  poor  as  he. 

She  also  believed  that  her  relations  hated  her,  and  had 
attempted,  in  various  ways,  to  annoy  and  wrong  her  ;  and 
this  belief  she  expressed  to  visitors,  to  servants,  to 
chance  acquaintances,  and  to  her  relations  themselves, 
sometimes    talking   about   it  for    hours    together.     No 


352  THE   ANGELL   WILL   CASE. 

general  expression  can  convey  an  adequate  idea  of  the 
intensity  of  this  feeling,  and  therefore  we  are  obliged  to 
refer  particularly  to  statements  made  by  witnesses, 
though  these  must  be  only  a  selection  from  a  multitude 
like  them.  Several  of  her  relations,  who  were  in  habits 
of  familiar  intercourse  with  her  for  many  years,  declared 
that  she  frequently  spoke  of  the  wrongs  and  insults  she 
had  received  from  her  relations.  One,  whose  acquaint- 
ance with  her  was  very  intimate,  said  she  was  never 
with  her  an  hour  without  hearing  something  from  her 
on  this  subject.  The  same  kind  of  discourse  was  held 
to  other  relatives ;  her  charges  of  wrong-doing  often 
being  made  against  the  parents,  brothers,  or  sisters  of 
the  person  she  was  addressing.  A  witness  who  rented 
a  mill  belonging  to  her  brother,  and  who,  in  consequence, 
was  in  the  habit  of  going  to  the  house,  and  thus  seeing 
her  frequently,  for  seventeen  years,  said  that  the  treat- 
ment she  received  from  her  relations  was,  from  the  be- 
ginning to  the  end,  her  constant  theme,  not  dropped  even 
on  the  evening  when  her  brother  was  drawing  his  last 
breath  in  an  adjacent  room.  A  neighbor,  whose  acquaint- 
ance with  her  was  still  longer,  said  she  was  always  im- 
puting bad  designs  to  her  relations,  and  he  never  knew 
her  to  speak  otherwise.  Another,  an  eminent  lawyer, 
whose  acquaintance  with  her  was  chiefly  confined  to 
several  visits  he  made  her,  some  for  the  purpose  of  in- 
ducing her  to  make  an  exchange  of  land,  which  would 
be  for  their  mutual  benefit,  and  some  for  the  purpose  of 
persuading  her  to  join  him  in  a  gift  of  land  (their 
estates  being  contiguous)  to  an  orphan  asylum,  the 
friends  of  which  were  seeking  a  site,  said  she  would 
constantly  fly  from  the  subject  and  talk  against  her  rela- 
tives, so  that  he  was  unable  to  accomplish  any  thing.  To 
the  switchman  at   the   station    near  her  house,  and   a 


THE   AXGELL   WILL   CASE.  353 

mechanic  who  rented  one  of  her  tenements,  the  shame- 
ful treatment  she  received  from  her  relatives  was  the 
burden  of  her  story.  The  wrongs  and  wrongful  designs 
which  she  imputed  to  them  were  cheating  her  out  of 
her  property,  treating  her  or  her  brother  discourteously, 
and  making  various  attempts  upon  her  own  and  her 
mother's  life  by  poisoning  or  shooting. 

That  she  was  treated  improperly  by  the  sons  of  her 
step-father,  is  not  impossible,  though  there  was  no  evi- 
dence of  it,  and  thus  she  may  have  had  good  reason  for 
hating  them  very  cordially.  With  this  possible  exception, 
she  seems  to  have  been  treated  by  her  relations  respect- 
fully, honorably,  and  courteously,  and  often  with  great 
forbearance.  Her  feelings  towards  the  descendants  of 
those  uncles  who  defrauded  her,  as  she  believed,  were 
attributable,  of  course,  to  this  delusion,  one  part  of 
which  was  that  these  descendants  were  enjoying  what 
they  knew  to  be  the  fruits  of  iniquity.  Towards  some 
others,  her  feelings  must  have  sprung  solely  from  morbid 
suspicion  and  distrust.  Certainly,  many  of  them  had 
nothing  to  do  with  her  father's  property. 

As  might  have  been  expected,  these  delusions,  exist- 
ing, as  they  did,  for  many  years,  were  accompanied  by 
various  other  mental  manifestations  such  as  are  fre- 
quently observed  in  the  insane,  and  are  more  or  less 
characteristic  of  insanity.  The  most  prominent  were 
suspicions,  if  not  fixed  belief,  of  wrong-doing  or  wrong- 
intending,  on  the  part  of  those  with  whom  she  was  con- 
versant, or  who  had  been  connected  with  her  affairs.  So 
many  instances  of  this  feeling  appeared  in  evidence, 
that  our  limits  oblige  us  to  make  a  selection,  and  that 
very  limited.  She  declared  that  she  had  never  received 
in  full  her  share  of  her  paternal  grandfather's  estate, 
charging  the  executor  of   his   will,  Moses  Brown  —  a 

23 


354  THE   ANGELL   WILL   CASE. 

man  distinguished  in  his  day,  as  she  well  knew,  for  up- 
rightness —  with  fraudulent  practices  in  the  settlement 
of  the  estate ;  and  this  not  only  without  proof,  but 
against  proof.  She  also  declared  that  she  never  received 
her  share  of  her  maternal  grandfather's  estate.  She 
always  believed  that  her  step-father  had  been  grossly 
defrauded  by  his  clerks,  —  men  who  for  many  years 
afterwards  enjoyed  an  unsullied  reputation  in  the  very 
community  where  all  the  parties  were  well  known, — 
who  had  made  fortunes  out  of  the  estate.  One  of  her 
neighbors,  a  gentleman  of  the  highest  respectability, 
she  charged  with  unfairness  in  running  the  line  be- 
tween their  respective  lots.  A  Bleachery  Company  which 
had  hired  land  of  her  she  charged  wrongfully  with  fenc- 
ing in  more  land  than  they  were  entitled  to,  and  with 
laying  pipes  to  take  water  from  her  springs.  So  strongly 
had  this  last  notion  taken  possession  of  her  mind,  that 
she  directed  her  servants  to  dig  down  and  cut  off  the 
pipes  where  there  was  no  indication  of  the  ground 
having  been  disturbed  for  many  years.  When  she  saw 
the  railway  people  repairing  the  line  fence,  she  would 
charge  them  with  moving  the  fence  in  upon  her  land, 
and  sometimes  even  when  they  were  at  work  on  the 
track,  and  not  on  the  fence  at  all.  She  told  one  wit- 
ness that  everybody  wanted  to  rob  her,  except  her  milk- 
man. In  talking  with  another  about  a  suitable  person 
to  manage  her  affairs,  after  her  brother's  death,  she  said 
she  could  trust  nobody.  At  one  period  she  was  in  the 
habit  of  locking  her  servants  in  their  rooms  at  night. 
Once,  on  going  to  bed,  she  found  a  window  open  which 
she  had  directed  a  servant  to  close,  and  declared  it  was 
left  open  purposely  to  let  in  her  relatives.  She  said  the 
same  respecting  an  outside  door  she  once  found  open  in 
the  morning.     Coming  home  late  one  evening  she  found 


THE   AXGELL   WILL    CASE.  355 

her  gate  locked,  according  to  her  own  direction,  and 
afterwards  recorded  in  her  diary  her  conviction  that  it 
was  done  purposely  to  annoy  her.  In  her  diary  she 
writes,  "  My  poor  cat  has  been  missing  ever  since  last 
Tuesday,  killed  because  my  cat,  I  suppose.  She  is  all  I 
had  left  of  former  days."  She  thought  it  strange  that 
a  certain  one  of  her  relatives,  a  young  woman  who  fre- 
quently stayed  with  her  several  days  together,  should 
express  a  desire  to  be  rich,  and  said  she  felt  afraid  of 
her.  During  the  latter  years  of  her  life  she  manifested 
great  distrust  of  her  servants.  She  said  they  always 
wanted  to  rob  her.  Three  of  them  stated  that  it  was 
her  practice  to  lock  them  up  in  their  rooms  over  night. 
Having  disagreed  with  the  man  who  had  taken  charge 
of  her  place,  and  dissolved  the  engagement,  she  sat  up  a 
part,  if  not  the  whole,  of  the  night  before  he  went  away, 
apprehending  harm.  When  it  was  suggested  to  her  that 
she  should  have  a  man  sleeping  in  the  house,  she  replied 
that  she  would  feel  safer  alone.  A  witness  stated  that 
during  a  visit  of  a  few  weeks  which  she  made  her,  it  was 
her  practice  to  close  the  shutters  before  the  lamps  were 
lighted.  She  stopped  her  paper,  the  Christian  Watch- 
man, the  organ  of  the  Baptists  in  New  England,  because 
they  charged  her  fifty  cents  more  than  any  other  sub- 
scriber ;  and  she  pronounced  it  a  cheating  concern. 
Within  a  year  or  two  of  her  death,  a  couple  of  ladies,  one 
of  them  a  distant  connection  of  the  family,  called  on  her 
and  were  courteously  received.  The  conversation  having 
turned  on  her  lonely  situation,  they  asked  if  she  was 
not  afraid  of  being  molested.  She  replied  that  she  had 
nothing  to  tempt  burglars;  when  they  asked  if  she  had 
none  of  the  Leonard  plate  in  the  house.  Her  whole  man- 
ner changed  instantly,  and  she  told  them,  wTith  some 
warmth,  that  if  they  had  no  better  purpose  in  calling 


35(5  THE   ANGELL   WILL   CASE. 

than  to  try  to  find  out  how  much  plate  she  had,  they 
had  better  go  along,  as  they.did  immediately. 

Intimately  connected  with  this  spirit  of  suspicion  and 
distrust,  was  a  disposition  to  charge  the  people  around 
her  with  stealing   and    injuring   her   property.     With 
others  thus  charged,  was  one  extensively  known,  and 
regarded  as  preeminently  honest  and  just,  —  a  leading 
member  and  preacher  of  the  Society  of  Friends.     Be 
had  hired  her  place,  and  had  much  occasion,  of  course, 
to  handle  her  property.    Him  she  charged  with  stealing 
her  asparagus,  currant-bushes,  strawberry-plants,  lilacs, 
loam,  and  some  planks  for  firewood.     Another,  who  had 
hired  the  place,  she  charged  with  stealing  wood,  tearing 
up  the  barn-floor,  pushing  down  five  or  six  rods  offence, 
and  not  feeding  the  cow.     She  also  said  he  stole  her 
key  and  filled  the  key-holes  with  sand.   She  charged  the 
man  who  milked  her  cow  with  taking  more  than  his 
share.     Being   unable  to  find  some  papers   which  had 
been  in  her  possession,  she  declared  they  were  stolen, 
though  they  were  afterwards  found  in  the  hands  of  her 
lawyer,  where  she  had  placed  them  herself,  or  some  one 
on  her  behalf.    One  of  her  poor  relations,  whom  she  was 
in  the  habit  for  years   of  sending  for  in  all  domestic 
straits,  she  charged  with  dishonesty.     To  one  witness 
she   declared  she  could  keep  no  food  in  the  house,  be- 
cause the  servants  stole  it,  and  said  that  one  of  them 
stole  her  sheets  and  cut  them  up  into  night-clothes  with 
an  axe,  on  the  barn-floor.     Two  of  her  servants  testified 
that  she  charged  them  with  stealing,  and  examined  their 
clothes   when   they    left.      Her   neighbors  she  charged 
with  stealing  her  chickens,  and  taking  boards  and  shin- 
gles from  her  barn. 

The  idea  of  being  poisoned  seems  to  have  been  very 
familiar  to  her  mind.     She  often  stated  that,  when  they 


THE   ANGELL    WILL    CASE.  357 

lived  in  Taunton,  the  children  of  her  step-father  by  his 
first  wife  poisoned  the  well  and  the  coffee,  and  placed 
on  the  window-sill  and  other  parts  of  the  house  a  white 
powder,  which  she  believed  to  be  poison.  She  also 
charged  them  with  attempting  to  get  rid  of  their  young 
half-brothers  (children  of  her  mother),  by  offering  them 
hot  punch  in  which  poison  was  put.  John,  she  said, 
did  not  drink  it ;  but  Sam  did,  was  very  ill,  and  died  in 
consequence  some  twenty-five  years  afterwards.  Among 
the  witnesses  were  many  relatives,  and  they  all  concurred 
in  the  statement  that  she  never  ate  or  drank  in  the 
houses  of  her  relatives,  and  that  when  she  accompanied 
them  on  excursions  she  would  never  partake  of  the 
refreshments  they  carried  with  them.  The  reason  she 
gave  for  it  was,  that  she  was  afraid  of  being  poisoned. 
The  same  apprehensions  were  manifested  in  regard 
to  her  house-servants,  and  the  people  whom  she  em- 
ployed to  manage  her  place.  She  refused  to  eat  some 
sweet  corn  which  one  of  the  latter  sent  her,  saying  she 
would  eat  nothing  he  might  send,  adding  that  she  once 
drank  some  cider  he  sent  in,  and  was  made  sick  by  it. 
She  suspected,  if  she  did  not  really  believe,  that  her  well 
had  been  poisoned  by  the  Quaker  preacher  then  liv- 
ing on  the  place.  She  was  in  the  habit,  at  one  time,  of 
locking  up  her  coffee-pot  over  night,  for  fear  of  her 
servants  poisoning  it  at  the  instigation  of  her  relatives. 
The  same  relative  who  frightened  her  by  expressing  a 
desire  to  be  rich,  she  suspected  of  poisoning  the  food. 
A  woman,  who  had  been  employed  by  her  as  a  servant 
for  a  little  while,  subsequently  came  to  draw  water  from 
her  well.  She  imbibed  the  notion  that  this  woman  came 
for  the  purpose  of  poisoning  the  water,  and  so  strong 
was  this  belief,  that  within  twenty  hours  of  her 
death,  when  prostrated  by  a  shock    of    paralysis    and 


358  THE    ANGELL   WILL   CASE. 

unable  to  articulate,  she  wrote  on  a  slate,  "  woman  came 
to  draw  water,"  alluding  to  a  statement  she  had  pre- 
viously made  to  the  witness,  that  Mrs.  P.  had  come  to 
draw  water  and  had  poisoned  the  well. 

Several  instances  of  that  kind  of  fancied  insult  so 
characteristic  of  the  insane  appeared  in  evidence.  She 
said  that  one  day,  when  approaching  the  house  of  her 
cousins,  the  Misses  G.,  with  whom  she  had  been  for 
some  years  on  friendly  terms,  some  one  came  to  the 
window  and  shut  the  blinds.  This  she  considered  a 
deliberate  insult,  and  never  entered  the  house  again 
for  the  rest  of  her  life, — nearly  twenty-five  years. 
Once  the  wife  of  another  cousin  grossly  insulted  her, 
she  said,  by  a  look,  — a  such  a  look  as  she  should  not 
forget  to  the  last  day  of  her  life."  In  both  cases  the 
strongest  disclaimers  were  made  of  any  wish  or  thought 
to  insult  her,  but  without  affecting  her  belief. 

One  instance,  at  least,  was  related  of  that  disregard  of 
moral  propriety  not  unfrequently  observed  in  the  insane, 
even  those  who,  to  the  casual  observer,  seem  to  retain 
their  sense  of  moral  obligation.  Once,  a  year  or  two  be- 
fore her  death,  she  engaged  a  man  to  watch  her  grounds 
by  night,  and  when  about  proceeding  to  his  duty  put  into 
his  hands  two  pistols,  and  charged  him  to  shoot  down 
the  first  person  or  beast  that  came  on  the  grounds, —  she 
would  hold  him  harmless.  He  of  course  declined  the 
duty. 

Several  instances  were  related  of  that  common  trait 
of  insanity,  —  the  inability  to  appreciate  the  true  rela- 
tion between  means  and  end.  A  witness,  whose  duties 
made  him  acquainted  with  the  sick  and  destitute  in  her 
part  of  the  town,  was  requested  by  her  to  bring  such 
cases  to  her  knowledge,  that  she  might  send  them  some- 
thing.   A  suitable  case  occurring,  —  that  of  a  poor  woman 


THE   ANGELL   WILL   CASE.  359 

in  the  last  stage  of  consumption,  with  a  couple  of  chil- 
dren who  could  not  attend  the  Sunday  school  for  want 
of  clothes,  —  he  told  her  of  it,  reminding  her  of  the 
request  she  had  made.  On  leaving,  she  handed  him 
something  wrapped  in  a  bit  of  rag,  which  was  found  to 
be  five  little  pickled  cucumbers.  At  another  time  she 
sent  by  her  servant  four  cold  potatoes  to  a  woman  in 
consumption.  Living  in  a  district  supposed  to  be  rather 
lawless,  she  naturally  thought  of  protecting  herself  by 
means  of  fire-arms ;  but  instead  of  keeping  a  single  re- 
liable weapon  within  reach,  as  sane  people  would,  she 
was  in  the  habit,  for  several  weeks  at  least  towards  the 
close  of  her  life,  of  sleeping  with  a  six-barrel  revolver 
under  her  pillow,  an  old  horse  pistol  on  each  side  of  the 
bed,  and  another  at  the  foot  of  the  bed,  —  an  arrange- 
ment far  more  likely  to  harm  herself  than  anybody  else. 
And  these  pistols  she  insisted  on  having  reloaded  every 
four  or  five  weeks,  though  assured  by  the  gunsmith 
repeatedly  that  it  was  unnecessary  to  have  it  done  so 
often. 

The  idea  of  shooting  or  being  shot  not  unfrequently 
occupied  her  mind,  from  an  early  period.  She  once 
brought  a  pistol  to  a  female  friend  and  endeavored  to 
persuade  her  to  learn  to  use  it,  and  once  fired  a  pistol 
out  of  the  window,  as  she  said,  at  some  fancied  in- 
truder. A  story  she  often  told  was,  that  on  a  journey 
to  South  Carolina,  in  early  life,  she  observed  on  board 
the  steamer  a  man  who  watched  her  and  kept  near  her 
for  several  days,  until,  his  coat  blowing  open,  she  caught 
sight  of  a  pistol  sticking  out  of  his  pocket,  when  she 
got  frightened  and  went  below.  This  man  she  believed 
to  be  Commodore  Barney,  a  relative,  whose  -nephews 
were  claimants,  with  herself  and  many  others,  of  an 
English  estate  th^en  in  Chancery,  who  designed  to  shoot 


360  THE   ANGELL   WILL   CASE. 

her  in  order  to  better  the  claim  of  his  nephews.  During 
the  last  fifteen  or  twenty  years  of  her  life,  she  was  fond 
of  telling  a  story  of  a  man  coming  to  her  door  and  snap- 
ping a  pistol  at  her  as  she  opened  it.  This  story  was 
told  with  many  variations.  Sometimes  it  was  a  man 
whom  she  had  seen  for  several  days  loitering  near  the 
house,  and  sometimes  it  was  a  horseman.  Sometimes 
it  was  a  servant  and  sometimes  herself  that  went  to  the 
door.  Sometimes  he  only  presented  his  pistol,  when  she 
said  she  also  had  a  pistol,  and  turned  to  get  it,  when  he 
was  scared  and  went  off.  At  first  she  did  not  pretend 
to  know  who  it  was,  but  latterly  she  always  said  it  was 
the  son  of  one  of  her  cousins,  instigated  by  other  rela- 
tives to  put  her  out  of  the  way. 

There  was  much  evidence  proving  that  fickleness  of 
purpose  so  common  with  the  insane.  The  people  whom 
she  employed  in  one  way  or  another  spoke  much  of  this 
troublesome  trait.  Once  she  engaged  a  man  to  take  the 
wood  from  a  certain  lot  at  a  stated  price  per  acre ;  but 
when  he  had  nearly  finished  she  forbade  his  cutting 
more,  or  carrying  away  what  remained  on  the  ground. 
He  agreed  to  this,  on  being  paid  for  what  he  had  cut. 
Afterward  she  got  him  to  take  away  what  he  had  cut, 
though  at  a  quarter  of  a  dollar  less  than  by  the  terms  ot 
the  original  contract.  Another  was  engaged  to  clear  up 
a  piece  of  swamp  covered  with  a  growth  of  brush  and 
small  trees,  all  of  which  he  was  to  have  for  his  labor. 
He  went  to  work,  but  before  he  had  got  to  that  part 
which  would  afford  any  remuneration  for  his  pains  she 
stopped  him  and  gave  the  job  to  another.  Thinking  a 
brood  of  newly  hatched  chickens  would  suffer  from  the 
rain,  she  had  them  taken  from  the  hen  and  put  into  the 
kitchen  sink.  Soon,  however,  she  imagined  they  would 
suffer  from  the  heat  indoors,  and  had  them  taken  back 


THE   AXGELL   WILL   CASE.  361 

to  the  hen.  Again  she  changed  her  mind,  and  directed 
them  to  be  brought  back  to  the  kitchen.  Exactly  how 
many  times  the  change  was  made  the  witness  could  not 
say.  The  same  trait  was  exhibited  in  regard  to  the 
work  of  her  domestic  servants,  several  of  whom  testified 
that  she  frequently  changed  their  work  without  any 
reason. 

Some  of  the  reasons  which  she  gave  for  her  belief  in 
the  great  Virginia  estate  are  strikingly  illustrative  of  the 
ways  of  the  insane  mind.  She  said  that  when  a  young 
girl  she  occasionally  met  in  the  street  a  servant  woman 
who  would  exclaim  when  passing,  "  Poor  child  !  what  a 
pity  she  could  not  have  her  rights ; "  that  a  lawyer  once 
said,  alluding  to  her  claims  on  the  English  property, 
that  if  she  wanted  property  she  could  find  it  nearer 
home  than  England ;  that  a  relative,  of  hers,  one  of  the 
Angell  family,  once  came  to  her  greatly  exercised  about 
a  question  of  conscience,  —  viz.,  whether,  if  she  knew  of 
property  in  the  bands  of  persons  that  had  no  right  to  it, 
it  would  be  her  duty  to  disclose  it,  and  thus  bring  dis- 
grace on  near  relatives,  such  as  a  father  or  mother,  or  a 
friend  ;  that  once  her  uncle  Thomas  began  to  talk  to 
her  about  property,  saying  that  he  knew  of  her  having 
property  in  the  hands  of  some  persons  from  whom  she 
could  not  obtain  it,  and  when  he  had  thus  excited  her 
suspicions  she  questioned  him  further,  but  his  mouth 
was  shut.  Whether  all  or  any  of  these  incidents  ever 
occurred  as  related,  or  were  magnified  out  of  some  trivial 
expressions,  of  course  we  have  no  means  of  knowing.  It 
is  not  improbable  that  they  were  all  the  mere  coinage 
of  a  distempered  mind. 

Some  facts  in  her  domestic  management  might  be 
paralleled  in  that  of  many  an  insane  person.  A  cousin, 
accompanied  by  her  husband,  made  her  a  visit  and  spent 


362  THE   ANGELL   WILL   CASE. 

the  night,  Miss  A.  lighting  them  upstairs,  putting  them 
into  different  rooms,  and  locking  the  doors.  Many  years 
after,  this  same  cousin  called  upon  her  about  eleven 
o'clock,  but  found  her  just  ready  to  go  into  town.  Miss 
A.  invited  her  to  stay  until  she  returned,  directing 
another  cousin  then  staying  with  her  not  to  get  dinner 
in  the  mean  time.  Late  in  the  evening  she  made  her 
appearance,  seemed  surprised  to  find  her  cousin  there, 
and  invited  her  very  plainly  to  find  a  lodging  somewhere 
else.  She  refused  to  leave  the  house  at  that  late  hour, 
and  was  sent  off  to  bed  in  the  dark,  without  dinner  or 
supper.  At  breakfast  next  morning  they  had  nothing 
to  eat  but  rye-and-indian  cake,  and  a  very  small  bit  of 
butter.  Another,  who  resided  in  Maine,  in  the  course  of 
a  visit  to  Providence  was  invited  to  dine  with  her,  and 
she  found  the  dinner  scanty  and  the  table-cloth  ragged. 
A  servant  stated  that,  there  being  only  three  in  the 
house,  she  bought  at  one  time  fifty  scup,  half  a  dozen  of 
which  would  have  been  an  ample  dinner  for  them  all. 
At  another  she  bought  a  large  turkey,  and  at  another 
a  large  goose,  both  of  which  spoiled  before  they  were 
half  eaten.  One  witness  spoke  of  her  getting  a  quarter 
of  veal,  and  at  another  time  a  side  of  pork,  all  of  which, 
except  a  part  of  the  pork  which  was  salted,  spoiled 
before  they  attempted  to  eat  it.  Two  or  three  witnesses 
saw  her  getting  breakfast  by  a  fire  of  green  wood. 

Several  witnesses  testified  to  that  disregard  of  little 
proprieties  and  observances  which  is  so  common  with 
the  insane.  She  would  express  her  sentiments  respect- 
ing her  relatives,  not  only  to  those  who  would  naturally 
be  interested  in  them,  but  to  her  servants,  and  to  people 
but  little  known  to  her,  and  often,  during  one  winter  at 
least,  at  the  table  of  a  public  boarding-house.  A  witness 
once  saw  her  near  her  mill-dam  —  about  half  a  mile  from 


THE   ANGELL   WELL   CASE.  363 

her  house  —  with  a  calash  on  her  head  and  flour  on  her 
black  dress,  looking  "  dirty  and  miserable,"  with  a  troop 
of  boys  teasing  her.  The  same  witness  once  saw  her, 
when  chasing  some  cows,  dash  through  a  pool  of  water 
that  lay  between  them.  Another  once  found  her  in  high 
altercation  with  her  farmer,  her  hair  down  and  dress 
open ;  and  he  led  her  away  into  the  house.  Another 
spoke  of  finding  her  in  the  road  near  her  house,  with  her 
head  bare,  hair  flying  in  all  directions,  and  no  shawl  on. 
There  seems  to  have  been  occasionally  a  failure  of  the 
perceptive  power,  not  so  much  indicative  of  mania  as 
of  impending  trouble  in  the  brain.  One  of  her  tenants 
said  that,  having  paid  his  quarter's  rent  on  one  occasion, 
he  recollected,  a  moment  or  two  after  leaving  the  house, 
that  he  had  omitted  speaking  about  some  repairs,  and 
returned  for  that  purpose.  Scarcely  three  minutes  had 
elapsed;  but  she  did  not  recognize  him,  and  he  found 
it  difficult  to  make  her  understand  who  he  was.  Subse- 
quently she  mistook  him  for  the  carpenter  who  shingled 
her  house,  and  complained  that  he  had  done  the  work 
badly.  He  explained,  but  she  repeated  the  mistake 
several  times  afterwards.  Once,  having  engaged  a  man 
to  cut  some  hay,  she  came  down  in  the  course  of  the 
day  to  see  how  the  work  was  going  on.  The  switch- 
man, whose  station  was  near  by,  said  he  walked  towards 
her,  and  that  they  met  but  a  few  steps  from  the  workmen, 
she  crying  out,  "  What  are  they  doing  ?  Why,  they  are 
ploughing  up  my  meadow.  What  shall  I  do?  "  He  told 
her  that  they  were  only  raking  up  the  hay  with  a  horse- 
rake,  and  it  was  all  right.  She  kept  on  crying  out, 
"  What  shall  I  do  ?  They  are  ploughing  up  my  meadow," 
and  rushed  into  the  field  and  ordered  the  people  to  stop. 
They  gave  no  heed  to  her,  and  she  started  towards 
the  city,  saying  she  would  tell  Judge  S.     The  witness 


364  THE   ANGELL   WILL   CASE. 

said  she  was  not  more  than  twenty  feet  from  the  horse- 
rake. 

Twice  there  seem  to  have  been  hallucinations,  within 
the  last  year  or  two  of  her  life.  Once  she  said  she  had 
smelt  chloroform  three  nights  in  succession,  but  it  was 
proved  that  there  was  none  in  the  house.  Shortly 
before  her  death  she  awoke  in  the  middle  of  the  night, 
and,  as  she  stated,  found  Mrs.  P.  —  the  woman  who  poi- 
soned the  well  —  standing  over  her. 

She  manifested  much  of  that  curious  inconsistency 
which  constitutes  so  common  and  so  remarkable  a  feat- 
ure of  insanity.  Among  the  friends  and  associates  of 
her  brother  was  her  cousin,  W.  M.  B.  They  were  much 
together,  and  every  day  interchanging  tokens  of  kind- 
ness and  good  will.  On  his  death-bed  the  brother  took 
his  friend  by  the  hand,  the  sister  standing  by,  and  asked 
him,  as  his  last  request,  if  he  would  continue  to  do  for 
her  as  he  had  for  him.  For  seven  years  he  continued 
to  visit  her  almost  daily,  and  perform  for  her  some  little 
offices  of  kindness  or  care.  He  settled  difficulties  with 
her  servants  and  tenants,  renewed  insurance  on  her 
tenements,  and  often  paid  the  premium  himself  to  save 
her  the  trouble,  lent  her  money,  advised  her  in  the 
management  of  her  affairs,  and  by  countless  services  of 
this  kind  endeavored  to  redeem  the  promise  made  to 
her  brother.  And  yet,  a  year  or  two  before  she  died, 
she  declared  to  one  of  her  fellow-boarders  that  W.  M.  B. 
would  as  lief  murder  her  as  not,  and  had  instigated  a 
man  to  come  to  her  house  and  shoot  her.  Once,  at 
her  own  request,  W.  M.  B.  engaged  a  woman  to  go  to  the 
house  and  render  such  services  as  she  could.  This 
she  did  for  several  weeks,  being  treated  by  Miss  A. 
courteously  and  confidentially.  Yet  to  this  very  woman 
she  said  that  W.  M.  B.  visited  her  as  a  spy,  and  was  at 


THE   AXGELL    WILL    CASE.  365 

the  head  of  the  conspiracy  against  her.  After  urgently 
inviting  Mrs.  K.,  the  mother  of  W.  M.  B.,  to  visit  her 
according  to  her  usual  custom,  when  she  came  to  town, 
she  said  that  Mrs.  K.  came  as  a  spy  for  the  Gs.  Her 
vehement  desire  to  see  the  churches  built  in  her  own 
lifetime,  and  the  utter  uselessness  of  her  land,  except 
to  be  sold,  were  sufficient  reasons  to  induce  her  to  ad- 
vertise the  land  as  she  did,  and  to  sell  at  a  fair  price,  as 
she  did  not.  She  was  never  willing  to  set  her  price,  and 
persons  desirous  of  buying  went  away  convinced  that 
she  did  not  wish  to  sell.  Fair  prices  were  offered,  and 
those  in  whom  she  had  most  confidence  advised  her  to 
accept  the  offers ;  but,  with  one  or  two  trifling  excep- 
tions, she  sold  no  land  in  Xorth  Providence.  She  gave 
as  a  reason  for  refusing  to  name  her  price  that  the 
assessors  would  hear  of  it,  and  the  next  year  they  would 
increase  her  taxes. 

Of  all  the  fancies  which  this  woman  adopted,  it  did 
not  appear  in  evidence  that  she  ever  relinquished  one 
to  the  weight  of  the  most  abundant  proof.  Many  in- 
stances, on  the  contrary,  appeared  of  her  persisting  to 
believe  them  as  veritable  truths,  in  spite  of  proofs  suffi- 
cient to  convince  any  sane  mind.  The  dying  request  of 
her  brother  to  W.  M.  B.  has  been  already  noticed.  Shortly 
after  that  scene,  she  reported  that  this  gentleman  refused 
to  assent  to  this  request ;  and  though  he  assured  her  she 
was  mistaken,  and  offered  in  proof  of  it  the  attentions 
and  services  he  had  since  rendered,  yet  she  was  uncon- 
vinced, and  continued  to  circulate  the  report.  She  be- 
lieved that  this  gentleman  must  have  obtained  some  of 
her  Virginia  property,  on  the  ground  that  he  could  not 
otherwise  have  built  a  block  of  stores  and  done  some 
other  things ;  and  though  he  explained  to  her  the  origin 
of  all  his  property,  she  was  unconvinced.     His  mother, 


366  THE   ANGELL   WILL   CASE. 

too,  she  believed  to  be  indulging  in  a  style  of  living 
which  her  husband's  salary,  as  a  college  professor, 
could  not  support,  and  therefore  she  must  be  enjoying 
her  Virginia  property.  The  amplest  proof  failed  to 
disabuse  her  of  a  notion  which  was  founded  on  mere 
rumor,  for  she  had  never  been  in  this  lady's  house.  The 
same  sort  of  charges  were  made  against  his  brother, 
then  a  professor  at  West  Point,  on  the  same  sort  of 
foundation,  and  with  the  same  resistance  to  proof.  She 
harped  upon  certain  furniture  which  W.  G.  had  sent 
from  Baltimore  to  this  gentleman's  grandfather ;  and 
though  he  showed  her  the  original  account  of  his  grand- 
father as  trustee  of  W.  G.'s  wife,  in  which  he  had  cred- 
ited himself  with  this  furniture,  she  was  faithless,  and 
continued  to  believe  as  firmly  as  ever  that  the  old  carpet 
and  andirons  were  part  of  the  spoil  of  her  father's  estate. 
And  so  with  her  belief  that  she  had  been  wronged  in 
the  settlement  of  her  grandfather  A.'s  estate.  To  her 
he  bequeathed  two  hundred  silver  dollars ;  but  the 
executors,  for  good  and  sufficient  reasons,  which  were 
approved  at  the  time  by  her  uncles  and  aunts,  set  off  to 
her  a  certain  lot  of  land  in  lieu  of  the  dollars.  When 
the  formal  statement  of  the  executors,  which  had  been 
put  on  record,  was  shown  to  her,  as  well  as  an  extract 
from  their  accounts  explaining  fully  the  transaction, 
she  coolly  replied  that  she  knew  all  that  before,  and 
kept  on  saying  to  the  last  year  of  her  life  that  she  had 
been  wronged  in  the  settlement  of  her  grandfather  A.'s 
estate  by  Moses  Brown,  whose  name,  long  after  his 
death,  was  a  synonyme  for  all  manner  of  uprightness  in 
this  community.  A  year  or  two  before  she  died  she 
sent  for  a  neighbor,  J.  W.,  to  come  and  cut  up  an  apple- 
tree  which  she  said  G.  —  the  man  who  had  hired  her 
place  for  the  year  —  had  cut  down  with  the  intention  of 


THE    ANGELL   WILL   CASE.  367 

carrying  away.  He  assured  her  that  the  tree  had  blown 
down,  and  that  any  one  could  see  that  it  had  rotted  off 
nearly,  and  showed  no  marks  of  an  axe.  Another  person, 
besides  G-.  himself,  said  the  same.  But  she  insisted  on 
having  the  tree  cut  up  and  put  into  the  cellar,  and  when 
the  door  was  shut  and  locked  she  exclaimed,  "  I  guess 
G.  can't  get  it  now,"  and  continued  to  tell  the  story  of 
G.'s  cutting  down  her  apple-tree. 

At  last,  on  the  11th  of  October,  1860,  this  lady  was 
struck  down  by  that  common  sequel  of  chronic  insanity 
—  paralysis —  which  finished  her  life  the  next  day. 

The  testimony  disclosed  many  other  indications  of 
mental  obliquity  sufficient  to  swell  this  article  to  the 
dimensions  of  a  volume.  It  was  necessary  to  make  a 
selection,  and  though  the  most  prominent  ones  have 
been  taken,  yet  many  others,  less  striking  to  the  casual 
observer,  are  not  less  significant  to  those  conversant 
with  mental  disease.  In  stating  the  above  facts,  it  has 
been  my  endeavor  to  adhere  strictly  to  the  evidence, — 
its  letter  as  well  as  its  spirit,  —  avoiding  every  word  or 
turn  of  expression  which  would  tend  to  give  it  a  higher 
coloring  than  the  exact  words  of  the  witness  would  bear. 

All  the  testimony  was  carefully  heard  on  the  first  trial, 
by  the  writer,  and  on  the  second  trial  by  him  and  by  Dr. 
Tyler,  of  the  McLean  Asylum,  while  on  the  third  it  was 
heard  only  by  the  writer  ;  and  they  unhesitatingly  ex- 
pressed the  opinion  that  the  testatrix  was  insane  when 
she  made  the  will  and  codicils.  By  them  the  belief 
that  her  relatives  hated  her  and  were  ready  to  annoy 
and  wrong  her,  and  the  belief  that  her  father  left  her  a 
large  estate  in  Virginia  of  which  her  relations  had  de- 
frauded her,  were  regarded  as  pure  delusions,  which,  in 
connection  with  the  suspicions,  the  notion  of  being 
poisoned,  the    indiscriminate    charges  of  stealing,  the 


Sti 8  THE   ANGELL   WILL   CASE. 

breaches  of  propriety,  the  insensibility  to  argument,  the 
fancied  insults,  the  hallucinations,  &c,  constituted  an 
actual  case  of  insanity,  presenting  nothing  strange  or 
extraordinary,  as  compared  with  the  usual  exhibitions 
of  the  disease. 

To  meet  this  clear  and  abundant  proof  of  insanity,  the 
other  side  produced  many  witnesses  from  various  walks 
of  life,  who,  on  the  strength  of  more  or  less  intercourse 
with  the  testatrix,  declared  that  they  saw  nothing  strange 
or  unusual  in  her  conduct  or  conversation.  They  con- 
tended that  the  will  was  a  rational  act,  rationally  done  ; 
and  endeavored  to  show  that  her  notions  respecting  her 
relatives,  her  Virginia  property,  and  some  other  fancies, 
had  some  foundation  in  fact,  sufficient  for  a  credulous, 
suspicious  mind,  and  therefore  could  be  justly  regarded 
as  mistakes,  not  delusions.  The  weakness  of  these  several 
positions  will  be  made  apparent  by  a  little  examination 
of  the  evidence,  and  of  the  phenomena  of  insanity. 

A  lawyer  wrote  her  will ;  another  was  her  adviser  and 
friend,  from  the  death  of  her  brother  to  her  own  ;  two 
or  three  physicians  had  casually  met  her,  one  at  her 
house,  on  the  occasion  of  the  sickness  of  some  mem- 
ber of  the  family,  and  another,  as  well  as  an  ex-judge 
of  the  Supreme  Court,  in  the  parlor  of  a  Saratoga  hotel ; 
several  clergymen  had  conferred  with  her  on  the  sub- 
ject of  missionary  efforts,  of  plans  for  the  religious 
teaching  of  the  people  in  her  neighborhood,  and  of 
contributions  to  a  fund  for  educating  young  men;  chari- 
table and  religious  men  sometimes  found  her  zealous 
and  liberal  when  appealed  to  for  aid  and  cooperation  ;  a 
dealer  in  real  estate  conversed  with  her  about  selling 
her  land  ;  a  grocer  sold  her  groceries,  and  a  bookseller 
books,  and  she  paid  them  promptly  ;  and  finally,  passing 
by  others  whose  acquaintance  with  her  was  \ery  casual 


THE   AJSTGELL   WILL   CASE.  369 

a  gerrtleman  whose  long  and  honorable  career  as  a  lead- 
ing minister  in  his  denomination,  as  the  president  of  a 
college,  and  a  writer  on  education  and  mental  science, 
have  made  his  name  familiar  as  household  words,  was 
intimately  acquainted  with  her  for  many  years,  and 
conceived  a  high  regard  and  respect  for  her,  —  these 
persons,  one  and  all,  declared  that  they  never  saw 
anything  "  strange  or  unusual  in  her  conduct  or  con- 
versation, dress  or  demeanor."  To  those  practically 
conversant  with  the  insane,  it  would  be  a  waste  of  words 
to  prove  that  such  a  fact  is  not  incompatible  with  the 
existence  of  insanity.  Having  her  delusions  somewhat 
under  her  control,  it  is  not  strange  that  she  refrained 
from  introducing  them  when  in  the  company  of  certain 
persons,  especially  those  whose  position  would  naturally 
forbid  discourse  of  any  kind  on  family  difficulties.  It 
was  in  the  retirement  of  home,  in  the  abandon  of  familiar 
intercourse  with  servants,  relatives,  and  neighbors,  that 
she  would  chiefly  give  vent  to  her  belief  and  her  feelings 
respecting  her  relatives  and  their  unprincipled  conduct. 
Occasionally,  however,  as  the  evidence  shows,  the  pro- 
prieties of  place  and  person  were  disregarded,  and  her 
complaints  were  poured  into  the  ears  of  a  very  different 
class  of  people.  In  fact,  the  gentleman  last  referred  to, 
and  two  or  three  others  who  came  to  the  same  conclu- 
sion, admitted  that  she  spoke  to  them  harshly  about  her 
relations,  but  that  they,  feeling  no  interest  in  the  sub- 
ject, paid  but  little  attention  to  what  she  said.  If  they 
had  encouraged  her  to  go  on,  they  might  possibly  have 
observed  something  strange  or  unusual  in  her  conversa- 
tion. That  she  had  some  self-control  is  obvious  from 
the  fact  stated  by  many  witnesses,  that,  when  talking 
with  them  on  her  favorite  theme,  she  would  stop  the 
moment  her  brother  John  made  his  appearance,  because 

24 


370  THE   ANGELL  WILL   CASE. 

she  knew  such  talk  annoyed  him  exceedingly,  he  having 
no  faith  in  her  fancies,  as  he  called  them.  Neither  was 
her  interest  in  religious  enterprises,  nor  the  character  of 
her  own  religious  sentiments,  incompatible  with  the  ex- 
istence of  delusion ;  for  if  correct  and  clear  on  any  sub- 
ject, as  she  might  be  in  the  form  of  insanity  alleged,  it 
is  not  surprising  that  she  was  so  in  regard  to  them. 

To  meet  directly  the  evidence  which  seemed  to  estab- 
lish the  existence  of  insanity  beyond  a  doubt,  the  attempt 
was  made  to  explain  some  of  the  facts  so  as  to  make 
them  not  incompatible  with  perfect  sanity.  Her  feelings 
towards  her  step-father's  family,  it  is  said,  were  justified 
by  their  treatment  of  herself  and  mother.  That  she 
might  have  been  treated  coldly,  even  discourteously,  by 
the  older  children,  is  not  unlikely,  though,  as  already 
said,  there  was  no  evidence  of  the  fact.  It  would  not 
have  been  a  very  strange  or  extraordinary  event;  nor 
would  it  have  been  surprising  had  she  spoken  unkindly 
of  them  and  avoided  all  intercourse,  for  such  would  have 
been  the  course  of  an  aggrieved  but  rational  mind.  In 
the  true  spirit  of  insanity,  however,  without  the  slightest 
color  of  proof,  and  against  all  reasonable  supposition,  she 
persists  through  her  whole  life  in  charging  them  with 
various  attempts  to  kill  her  by  poisoning  the  well,  by 
poisoning  the  food,  and  by  putting  poison  about  the 
house ;  in  charging  them  with  actually  poisoning  one 
brother  and  intending  to  poison  the  other.  Between  the 
alleged  fact  that  they  treated  her  disrespectfully  and  her 
conclusion  that  they  meant  to  take  her  life,  there  is  all 
the  interval  that  separates  sanity  from  insanity.  To  other 
relations  she  attributed  the  same  designs,  though  there 
was  not  a  tittle  of  evidence  to  show  unkind  feelings  or 
improper  conduct  towards  her.  Some  were  poor  and 
dependent,  coming  and  going  at  her  call ;  others  had  a 


THE   ANGELL   WILL   CASE.  371 

reputation  in  the  community  which  should  have  placed 
them  beyond  suspicion,  and  all  without  exception  treat- 
ing her  courteously  and  kindly.  In  regard  to  one  family 
she  offered  a  reason  for  her  dislike,  —  a  reason  which 
had  no  other  foundation  than  her  own  disordered  im- 
agination. 

The  other  main  delusion  —  that  of  having  inherited 
from  her  father  a  large  property  in  Virginia,  of  which 
she  had  been  defrauded  by  her  uncles  and  their  descend- 
ants —  had  a  reasonable  foundation,  it  was  contended,  in 
actual  facts.  In  order  to  make  this  explanation  intelli- 
gible, it  will  be  necessary  to  state  some  facts  connected 
with  this  delusion.  In  1796,  a  letter  was  received  in 
Providence  from  her  uncle  James,  then  living  in  Balti- 
more, in  which  he  speaks,  among  other  things,  of  his 
brother  Joseph,  father  of  the  testatrix,  "  who  died,"  he 
says,  "(or  rather,  I  am  inclined  to  think  from  reports, 
was  poisoned  by  his  wife),  near  Moorfield,  in  Virginia, 
a  few  months  since."  In  a  postscript  he  returns  to  the 
matter:  "Joseph,"  he  says,  "  had  married  a  widow  in 
Virginia,  possessed  of  an  estate  worth  a  considerable 
sum  of  money,  which  she  held  in  her  own  possession  at 
the  death  of  her  former  husband,  subject  to  her  control. 
From  what  I  can  learn,  there  were  marriage  articles  (or 
something  like  it)  between  them.  He  desired  on  his 
death-bed  (so  report  says)  that  his  body  might  be 
opened,  as  he  suspected  foul  play.  The  corpse  was  in 
consequence  arrested  on  its  way  to  the  place  of  burial  ; 
and  no  person  appearing  to  push  the  business,  supposing 
he  had  not  a  relative  in  America,  it  was  interred  without 
inspection,  nor  but  for  that  circumstance  should  I  have 
ever  heard  of  it.  I  have,  however,  engaged  a  friend 
who  lives  in  Moorfield  to  procure  a  copy  of  the  agree- 
ment (will,  if  there  is  any),  and  from  whom  I  soon  ex- 


372  THE   ANGELL    WILL   CASE. 

pect  to  hear.  That  there  is  property  there  that  his 
heirs  will  inherit,  I  have  no  doubt ;  but  whether  it  will 
fall  to  me  as  elder  brother,  I  cannot  say." 

The  contents  of  this  letter  became  known,  no  doubt, 
to  the  testatrix  and  her  mother.  The  latter,  naturally 
enough,  would  not  care  to  cherish  the  memory  of  her 
divorced  husband ;  and  the  former,  then  but  thirteen 
years  old,  would  scarcely  remember  all  the  particulars  of 
this  letter.  At  a  later  period  of  life,  she  became  desirous 
of  knowing  the  exact  circumstances  of  her  father's  death. 
Whether  this  letter  was  in  existence,  she  knew  not,  nor 
where  to  seek  for  information  about  it. 

In  1836  she  ascertained  that  one  of  her  relatives  had 
in  his  possession  many  old  family  letters  and  other  papers, 
and  at  her  request  they  were  given  to  her.  Among 
them  she  found  about  a  dozen  letters  written  from  Bal- 
timore in  1792,  by  her  uncle  W.  G.,  to  another  uncle, 
J.  W.,  then  in  Providence.  The  burden  of  these  letters 
is,  that  he  is  trying  to  settle  his  business  and  go  to 
the  north  ;  that  he  wants  his  brother-in-law  to  buy  him  a 
'farm  and  provide  stock,  carriages,  seeds,  &c.  In  almost 
every  letter  he  speaks  of  having  in  his  hands  funds  be- 
longing to  "  Eliza,"  which  he  is  desirous  of  investing  in 
connection  with  his  own,  or  in  a  separate  property.  In 
one  of  them  he  says  :  "  I  have  a  small  sum  of  money,  the 
property  of  Eliza  (which  is  accumulating,  though  it  is 
lying  idle),  that  I  wish  to  make  the  foundation  of  a  pur- 
chase for  her,  that  will  be  productive  now,  secure  the 
money,  and  facilitate  my  plans.  If  any  advantageous 
small  spec  can  be  made  for  her,  I  should  be  glad."  In  a 
previous  letter,  he  says:  "  If  the  Colonel  will  sell  his  con- 
tiguous land  reasonable,  I  would  endeavor  to  purchase 
it  for  Eliza.  .  .  .  You  must  know  I  can  devote  this 
money  to  no  other  use  than  purchasing  property  for 


THE   AXGELL   WILL   CASE.  373 

Eliza,  as  her  funds  must  pay  for  the  land."  This  is  a  fair 
specimen  of  the  references  to  Eliza  in  these  letters.  Had 
she  seen  no  more,  she  might  have  had  ground  for  a 
faint  suspicion  that  she  was  the  person  referred  to,  and 
consequently  that  her  father,  who,  she  knew,  did  actually 
die  about  that  time,  had  already  deceased  and  left  to  her 
a  trifle  of  property,  which,  by  some  means  or  other,  had 
come  into  the  possession  of  her  uncle.  But  these  very  let- 
ters contained  unequivocal  evidence  that  the  facts  she 
suspected  were,  some  of  them  false,  and  others  impos- 
sible. In  one  of  them  her  uncle  speaks  of  making  this 
investment  "  for  a  little  daughter,'7  and  she  might  have 
known,  had  she  inquired,  that  he  had  a  daughter  named 
Ann  Eliza.  Indeed,  that  fact  appears  in  one  of  the 
letters.  More  than  this,  she  found  in  them  mention  of 
her  own  father  as  then  living.  Mr.  G-.  says :  "  I  have 
just  received  intelligence  from  Berkely  that  Joseph 
[her  father]  keeps  school,  and  behaves  soberly  and  dis- 
creetly. He  has  twenty  scholars,  and  appears  and  acts 
reputably.  God  grant  it  may  last."  Subsequently,  his 
wife  says,  in  a  letter  to  Mrs.  W. :  "  Brother  Joseph  has 
established  a  school  of  twenty  scholars,  and  attends  it 
with  great  sobriety  and  diligence."  And  thus  it  was 
that  the  casual  mention  of  a  family  name  in  connection 
with  money  set  that  disordered  chord  in  vibration  ;  and 
under  its  influence,  without  proof  and  against  proof,  in 
the  true  spirit  of  insanit}T,  she  arrives  at  the  monstrous 
conclusion  that  her  father,  while  yet  in  the  flesh,  had 
died,  leaving  her  a  large  property  which  he  had  acquired 
by  his  second  marriage  ;  that  her  uncles  had  fraudulent- 
ly got  possession  of  it ;  that  their  descendants,  though 
above  suspicion  in  their  respective  communities,  were 
living  upon  it,  and  cognizant  of  the  wrong ;  and,  that 
they  might  enjoy  undisturbed  the  fruits  of  the  wrong, 


374  THE  ANGELL   WILL   CASE. 

were  instigating  attempts  upon  her  life.  If  this  is  not 
delusion,  —  gross,  unequivocal,  baseless  delusion,  —  I 
know  not  what  delusion  is. 

In  1855  she  obtained  possession  of  the  original  letter 
of  her  uncle  James,  in  which  he  communicated  the  fact 
of  her  father's  death,  and  from  that  she  learned  that  he 
died  some  four  or  five  years  subsequent  to  the  writing 
of  those  letters  in  which  "  Eliza's  guineas "  are  men- 
tioned. Yet  not  one  jot  did  she  relinquish  of  her  faith 
in  that  strong  belief  that  her  uncles  had  cheated  her  out 
of  her  father's  estate.  She  proclaimed  it  far  and  wide, 
and  triumphantly  appealed,  for  the  truth  of  her  story,  to 
these  old  letters  about  "  Eliza's  guineas,"  written  some 
three  or  four  years  before  he  died,  or  was  even  married. 

In  1857  she  employed  the  person  named  as  executor 
of  her  will  to  pursue  some  inquiries  into  the  circum- 
stances of  her  father's  marriage  and  death,  and  of  the 
property  he  left.  These  inquiries  were  very  satisfac- 
torily answered,  and  among  the  papers  obtained  were 
copies  of  the  inventories,  both  of  the  effects  which  he 
left,  and  of  the  property  which  his  wife  possessed  when 
they  were  married.  From  these  it  appeared  that  the 
value  of  all  their  possessions,  consisting  of  clothing, 
household  furniture,  and  stock,  amounted  to  just  £99 
7s.  9c?.  Of  a  small  parcel  of  land  in  that  region,  they  had 
made  a  conveyance,  for  a  few  shillings  the  acre  ;  but  the 
deed  was  not  perfected.  She  was  now  assured  by  her 
executor,  whose  professional  and  social  position  war- 
ranted the  utmost  confidence  in  his  judgment,  and  in 
whom,  in  fact,  she  had  placed  more  confidence  than  in 
anybody  else,  that  she  had  not  the  shadow  of  a  claim 
upon  any  property  left  by  her  father,  and  that  she  ought 
to  abandon  the  notion  for  ever.  She  did  no  such  thing. 
She  treated  these  proofs  precisely  as  all  insane  persons 


THE  ANGELL   WILL   CASE.  375 

treat  the  proofs  of  their  delusions,  —  precisely  as  she 
had  treated  the  most  conclusive  proofs  of  other  delu- 
sions. She  continued  to  believe  in  this  great  Virginia 
property,  and  even  more  earnestly  than  ever.  The  testa- 
mentary disposition  she  had  made  of  it  two  or  three 
years  before,  she  suffered  to  stand ;  and  once  at  least, 
within  a  few  months  of  her  decease,  she  declared  to  a 
witness  her  conviction  that  she  would  finally  obtain  that 
property.  Up  to  the  very  last,  she  declared  to  one  and 
another  that  the  children  of  those  uncles  were  living  on 
her  property,  and  seeking  her  life.  It  was  never  a 
matter  of  suspicion  or  doubt,  but  always,  from  first  to 
last,  through  a  series  of  twenty  years  or  more,  a  matter 
of  intense,  unwavering  belief. 

In  reply  to  all  this,  the  appellees  say  that  she  did  not 
suppose  the  "  Eliza's  guineas  "  to  have  been  a  legacy 
from  her  father,  but  money  intrusted  by  her  father  to 
her  uncle,  to  be  invested  for  her  benefit,  but  which  he 
appropriated  to  himself.  Believing  this,  the  next  step 
very  naturally  taken  was  to  believe  that,  after  her 
father's  death,  this  same  uncle  had  got  possession  of  the 
large  estate  which  he  had  bequeathed  to  her.  These  two 
conclusions,  they  allege,  were  the  result  of  a  highly 
suspicious,  distrustful  temper,  which,  belonging  to  the 
natural  constitution  of  her  mind,  cannot  be  regarded 
as  an  indication  of  insanity.  This  explanation  scarcely 
helps  them.  Were  the  mental  process  precisely  as  they 
state,  it  shows  a  gross  suspicion  without  the  slightest 
foundation  in  fact,  growing  out  of  another  suspicion  about 
as  baseless  as  the  last.  But  in  neither  case  was  it  a 
mere  suspicion.  It  was  a  fixed,  positive,  unwavering 
belief,  maintained  to  her  dying  day.  After  the  conclu- 
sive evidence  obtained  by  the  executor,  that  her  father 
left  her  nothing,  then  certainly  her  continued  belief  in 


376  THE   ANGELL   WILL   CASE. 

the  great  property  was  undeniably  a  delusion.  It  may 
be  justly  asked  when  this  notion  ceased  to  be  a  suspi- 
cion, and  began  to  be  a  delusion.  Was  it  at  the  very 
moment  when  this  evidence  was  placed  before  her?  If 
so,  then  it  appears  that,  while  the  facts  in  the  case  were 
somewhat  doubtful  and  obscure,  she  merely  suspected 
fraud ;  but  when  all  doubt  was  removed,  and  the  fact 
of  her  father's  poverty  conclusively  established,  she 
believed  it !  Of  course,  long  before  that  time,  probably 
from  the  very  hour  when  she  first  read  those  old  letters, 
she  believed  it  as  firmly  as  she  ever  did  afterward. 
Unquestionably,  a  very  suspicious  person  may  suspect 
many  very  improbable  things,  with  little  or  no  proof;  but 
the  moment  he  believes  them  he  is  under  a  delusion.  It 
is  this  confounding  of  two  essentially  different  states  of 
mind,  —  suspicion  and  belief,  —  which  makes  the  expla- 
nation of  the  appellees  utterly  fallacious. 

The  attempt  was  made  to  explain  away  other  things 
which  were  regarded  as  incidents  of  insanity.  The 
executor  alluded  to  her  refusal  to  eat  at  the  table  of  her 
relations,  and  remarked  that  "  she  was  terribly  afraid  of 
other  people's  dirt."  This  statement,  whether  it  origi- 
nated with  him  or  her,  hardly  helps  the  matter,  consider- 
ing what  manner  of  persons  those  relations  are,  and  the 
fact  that  she  often  dined  at  a  hotel,  and  for  several  sum- 
mers in  succession  spent  a  week  or  two  at  Saratoga. 
She  kept  pistols  in  her  room,  because,  it  was  alleged, 
she  lived  in  a  lawless  sort  of  district,  and  one  or  two  of 
her  neighbors  were  put  upon  the  stand  to  testify  that 
they  also  kept  pistols  in  the  house.  This  was  an  evasion  of 
the  true  issue.  It  was  not  the  fact  of  being  armed  which 
was  regarded  as  indicative  of  insanity,  but  the  manner 
in  which  this  matter  was  managed.  A  sane  person  would 
have  done  just  what  her  neighbors  did,  —  put  a  loaded 


THE   ANGELL   WILL   CASE.  377 

revolver  under  her  pillow  or  within  reach,  and  been  sat- 
isfied. She,  on  the  contrary,  makes  a  perfect  arsenal  of 
her  room,  —  a  six-barrelled  revolver  under  her  head,  an 
old  horse-pistol  on  each  side,  and  another  at  the  foot  of 
the  bed,  as  if  this  multiplicity  of  weapons  were  any  bet- 
ter than  one  !  as  if  they  were  not  more  likely  to  harm 
herself  or  her  servants  than  any  unwary  burglar!  And 
these  implements  of  destruction  must  be  taken  to  the 
gunsmith's  every  four  or  five  weeks,  to  have  the  charges 
drawn  and  be  reloaded.  Perhaps  there  was  no  single 
incident  of  this  woman's  life  more  characteristic  of  in- 
sanity than  this  lack  of  all  true  relation  between  the 
means  and  the  end  of  self-protection.  Her  charges  of 
stealing,  so  often  and  so  earnestly  made  against  the  honest 
old  Quaker  who  lived  a  year  or  two  on  her  place,  the 
same  witness  accounted  for  by  the  fact  that  the  testatrix 
was  opposed  to  all  agricultural  improvements,  and  wanted 
everything  to  remain  just  as  it  was  in  her  mother's 
time.  He  thought  differently,  and  so  he  scraped  the 
trees,  trimmed  the  currant-bushes,  reset  the  straw- 
berry beds,  &c.  She  thus  lost  sight  of  many  familiar 
objects  which  she  thought  must  have  been  stolen.  If  she 
really  came  to  her  conclusions  in  this  manner,  the  fact 
is  not  very  creditable  to  her  sagacity,  and  it  is  scarcely 
conceivable  how  any  sane  person  could  make  such  a 
mistake,  —  to  attribute  improvements  like  those  to  petty 
larceny.  Such  a  process  of  thought,  however,  is  very 
characteristic  of  insanity.  In  order  to  explain  away  her 
belief  that  her  step-father's  clerks  had  defrauded  him, 
it  was  alleged  that  such  a  village  rumor  prevailed  at  the 
time,  nearly  sixty  years  ago,  and  therefore  that  it  was 
not  strange  she  should  entertain  the  same  notion.  But 
this  is  not  sufficient.  What  was,  with  others,  an  idle 
rumor  seriously  believed  by  nobody,  was,  with  her,  a 


378  THE   ANGELL   WILL   CASE. 

matter  of  earnest  belief,  and  repeated  to  the  discredit  of 
persons  who,  for  half  a  century,  in  many  relations  of  life, 
social  and  business,  had  maintained  an  unsullied  repu- 
tation. 

The  manner  in  which  she  undertakes  to  accomplish 
her  designs  shows  no  indication  of  insanity ;  but  one 
would  hardly  appeal  to  it  as  a  proof  of  a  clear  and  vig- 
orous mind.  The  greater  part  of  her  estate  in  North 
Providence  consists  of  unoccupied  land,  valuable  only 
for  building  purposes.  Situated  on  the  very  border  of 
a  considerable  and  growing  city,  it  would  naturally  be 
sought,  while  the  abundance  of  other  land  similarly 
situated  would  prevent  it  being  taken,  except  in  the 
most  satisfactory  way.  As  long  as  equally  eligible  land 
can  be  obtained  by  purchase,  —  and  that,  to  all  human 
foresight,  will  be  for  many  years  to  come, —  this  cannot 
be  leased  advantageously,  except,  perhaps,  for  a  term  so 
long  as  to  practically  defeat  one  of  the  conditions  of  the 
will.  Eventually,  perhaps,  it  may  become  valuable,  even 
for  leasing ;  but  between  the  loss  of  interest  on  one  side, 
and  taxation  upon  its  market  value  on  the  other,  its  whole 
worth  may  have  been  sunk,  long  before  that  time.  And 
yet  she  refused  to  sell  during  her  life,  while  land  was 
up  and  her  neighbors  were  selling ;  and  in  her  will  for- 
bids the  sale  of  a  single  acre,  even  for  the  accomplish- 
ment of  her  plans.  Through  all  coming  time,  this  estate 
must  remain  in  the  hands  of  the  trustees,  who,  while 
invested  with  unlimited  discretion  in  everything  else, 
are  allowed  no  discretion  at  all  in  a  matter  where  they 
needed  it  most. 

These  trustees,  too,  are  not  required  to  give  bonds : 
they  are  made  responsible  to  nobody,  and  they  are  al- 
lowed to  compensate  themselves  for  their  services.  Not 
a  single  provision  is  made  for  preventing  an  abuse  of 


THE   ANGELL   WILL   CASE.  379 

the  trust,  or  stopping  it  after  it  may  occur.  Instead  of 
guarding,  in  every  possible  way,  against  the  usual  fate 
of  such  trusts,  —  a  fate  that  was  most  distinctly  pointed 
out  to  her  by  her  most  confidential  advisers,  —  the  dis- 
positions of  the  testatrix  would  seem  to  have  been  made 
expressly  for  the  purpose  of  inviting  it. 

So  far,  indeed,  the  will  presents  no  conclusive  proof 
of  mental  disorder;  but  the  codicil,  executed  a  few 
months  subsequently,  reveals  a  strong,  striking  delusion, 
calculated,  beyond  all  others,  to  annul  her  testamentary 
capacity.  There,  deliberately  and  solemnly,  she  puts 
upon  record  her  belief  in  that  great  Virginia  property 
which,  she  was  in  the  habit  of  declaring,  was  left  by  her 
father  and  purloined  by  her  relations.  True,  at  that 
time,  she  had  probably  found  the  letter  of  her  uncle, 
giving  an  account  of  her  father's  decease,  and  express- 
ing the  suspicion  that  he  had  left  property.  This  might 
have  warranted  her  even  in  indulging  the  same  sus- 
picion that  her  uncle  had,  sixty  years  before,  and  in 
making  it  the  basis  of  a  testamentary  bequest.  But  not 
long  after,  the  inquiries  of  her  executor  removed  every 
ground  of  suspicion,  and  furnished  abundant  proof  that 
her  father  left  her  nothing,  because  he  had  nothing  to 
leave.  Did  she  thereupon  revoke  that  codicil  ?  Cer- 
tainly not.  Her  declarations  to  witnesses  show  that  she 
believed  this  notion  of  the  Virginia  property  to  the  very 
last.  The  idea  of  property  in  the  moon  could  not  have 
been  more  indicative  of  folly. 

True,  the  executor  testified  that  this  codicil  was  made 
at  his  suggestion,  in  order  to  preclude  all  claims  from 
any  heir-at-law  who  might  possibly  share  her  belief  that 
she  had  property  in  Virginia,  and  thus  to  save  himself 
from  future  annoyances.  The  executor's  course  in  the 
matter  implied  no  opinion  necessarily,  respecting  the 


380  THE    ANGELL   WILL    CASE. 

character  of  this  bequest.  For  even  if  he  had  then 
believed  as  firmly  as  he  did  after  his  inquiries  that  her 
father  left  nothing  whatever,  he  might  still  have  advised 
the  codicil,  because  he  could  not  be  sure  that  some  one 
might  not  have  got  the  impression  that  the  testatrix  had  a 
good  claim  upon  property  in  Virginia.  However  that  may 
be,  the  essential  fact  is  not  affected.  Her  willingness  to 
accept  the  codicil  implies  the  existence  of  the  belief 
on  her  part,  and  therefore  it  is  immaterial  whether  it 
originated  with  herself  or  her  executor.  Whether  any 
possible  benefit  from  it  could  compensate  for  the  legal 
consequences  of  this  formal  recognition  of  a  palpable 
delusion,  is  a  question  which  naturally  arises,  but  which 
I  need  not  discuss,  because  not  exactly  within  my 
province. 

The  next  point  put  forth  by  the  appellees  was  much 
stronger  apparently,  but  it  lacked  the  essential  element 
of  strength, —  a  substantial  foundation.  The  will,  they 
alleged,  is  a  rational  act,  rationally  done,  for  a  purpose 
worthy  of  the  soundest  reason,  and  under  the  most  sa- 
cred of  human  obligations.  Several  of  the  witnesses  — 
men  whose  position  and  whose  relations  to  her  might  be 
supposed  to  have  procured  for  their  opinions  on  such  a 
subject  some  deference  —  stated  that  when  they  objected 
to  this  disposition  of  her  property,  and  tried  to  convince 
her  that  it  would  ultimately  fail  of  its  purpose,  as  all 
other  religious  trust-funds  had,  her  invariable  reply 
was  that  it  was  in  accordance  with  the  expressed  wishes 
of  her  brother  ;  that  the  object  nearest  and  dearest  to 
his  heart  was  to  establish  and  endow  Baptist  churches ; 
that  she  felt  bound  by  an  imperative  obligation  to  carry 
his  wishes  into  effect,  and  consequently  had  no  choice. 

Unquestionably,  if  she  had  promised  her  brother  so 
to  dispose  of  the  property  obtained  from  him,  such  a 


THE   ANGELL   WILL   CASE.  381 

will  should  be  regarded  as  valid,  in  morals,  if  not  in  law. 
He  had  a  right  to  exact  such  a  condition,  and  she  was 
bound  to  observe  it.  But  as  it  regards  her  own  prop- 
erty, —  that  which  came  from  other  sources  than  him,  — 
it  was  all  very  different.  Her  disposal  of  that  must  be 
bound  by  the  usual  conditions  of  a  testamentary  be- 
quest. She  could  neither  promise  to  dispose  of  it  in  a 
certain  way,  nor  carry  such  a  promise  into  effect,  unless 
possessed  of  testamentary  capacity. 

As  to  the  promise  itself,  on  which  so  much  stress  was 
laid  by  herself  and  her  counsel,  it  is  to  be  considered 
that  beyond  her  statement  there  was  not  the  slightest 
proof  in  evidence  that  he  wished  his  property  might, 
after  death,  be  devoted  to  religious  or  any  other  partic- 
ular purposes.  No  one  ever  heard  him  express  such  a 
wish.  On  the  contrary,  four  gentlemen,  all  friends  and 
companions,  with  whom  he  was  in  the  habit  of  express- 
ing his  views  very  freely,  declared  that  in  matters  of 
religion  he  maintained  a  sort  of  philosophical  indiffer- 
ence ;  that  he  did  not  confine  his  attendance  on  church 
to  any  particular  denomination ;  and  that,  as  one  of 
them  expressed  it,  he  had  no  faith  in  creeds,  nor  the 
expounders  of  creeds.  Indeed,  it  would  seem,  from  the 
statement  of  one  of  them,  that  he  had  no  active  religious 
belief  whatever.  He  had  contemplated,  no  doubt,  the 
erection  of  a  church,  in  his  lifetime,  on  his  land  in 
Taunton,  and  had  obtained  estimates  of  cost,  &c.  This 
project  he  frequently  spoke  of;  and  when  the  land  was 
offered  for  sale,  one  lot  was  reserved  for  a  church,  and  it 
was  so  stated  in  public.  Once,  when  passing  by  the  land, 
before  the  sale,  he  pointed  out  this  lot  to  the  friend  who 
was  with  him.  The  reply  indicated  very  clearly  the 
thought  which  was  passing  in  both  minds  :  "  I  advise 
you,"  said  his  friend,  "  to  build  at   once,  before   you 


382  THE   ANGELL   WILL   CASE. 

undertake  to  sell."  It  was  to  enhance  the  value  of  his 
land,  and  there  was  no  proof  that  he  regarded  it  in  any 
other  light.  So,  too,  he  would  point  out  a  lot  on  the 
North  Providence  estate,  as  that  which  Eliza  intended 
for  her  church. 

There  is  another  fact  of  no  insignificant  bearing  on 
this  alleged  vehement  desire  to  execute  her  brother's 
wishes.  Thirteen  months  were  suffered  to  elapse  be- 
tween his  death  and  the  execution  of  her  will.  Had  she 
died  suddenly  during  this  period,  —  an  event  not  very 
unlikely  at  her  age,  —  then  the  dearest  wishes  of  her 
brother  would  have  come  to  naught,  and  this  property 
would  have  gone  to  those  hated  relatives,  instead  of 
being  "  given  to  the  Lord."  There  was  no  reason  for 
the  delay, had  her  mind  been  made  up;  and  it  appeared 
that  during  this  period  she  mentioned  various  other 
charitable  objects  to  which  she  thought  of  bequeathing 
her  property.  The  only  possible  conclusion  is,  that  the 
disposition  she  finally  adopted  was  her  own  deliberate 
choice, —  not  the   execution  of  another's  wishes. 

The  psychological  history  of  this  lady  is  easily  read 
by  the  light  of  the  evidence ;  and  it  may  be  worth  our 
while  to  notice  some  of  the  prominent  incidents  of 
that  mental  movement  which,  beginning  in  the  deepest 
emotions  of  childhood,  fostered  by  the  peculiar  circum- 
stances of  her  lot,  and  determined  in  a  great  degree, 
probably,  by  hereditary  tendencies  to  disease,  ended 
finally  in  delusion  and  disorder.  It  was  the  work 
of  years,  it  is  true,  and  not  obvious  to  the  casual 
observer ;  but  it  was  none  the  less  real  or  serious. 

Though  too  young  at  the  time  to  be  much  affected  by 
the  separation  of  her  parents,  yet,  in  the  latter  years  of 
her  childhood,  it  must  have  been  a  subject  of  curious 
and  earnest  speculation.     At  the  age  of  ten,  the  second 


THE   ANGELL   WILL   CASE.  383 

marriage  of  her  mother  introduced  her  to  new  domestic 
scenes,  calculated  to  impart  a  peculiar  tone  to  her 
thoughts  and  feelings.  At  the  age  of  thirteen,  news 
came  of  the  death  of  her  father  in  a  remote  State, 
coupled  with  intimations  that  he  was  poisoned ;  and  it 
cannot  be  doubted  that  thereby  a  most  suggestive  and 
life-long  impression  was  made  upon  her  mind  at  this 
most  susceptible  period.  When  she  first  began  to  be- 
lieve or  suspect  that  attempts  were  made  to  poison  her 
or  any  of  her  family  does  not  appear.  The  evidence 
only  showed  that  the  belief  existed,  at  least,  some  thirty 
or  forty  years  before  her  death.  It  sprung,  very  prob- 
ably, from  the  circumstances  of  her  father's  death,  of 
which  she  always  retained  some  recollection.  In  fact, 
the  idea  of  poisoning  and  being  poisoned  thus  suggested 
to  her  susceptible  imagination,  became  so  familiar  to  her 
mental  experience  as  to  defy  the  utmost  efforts  of  reason 
to  dislodge  it. 

This  habit  of  mind  was  unquestionably  strengthened 
by  an  event  which  happened  towards  the  middle  period 
of  her  life.  An  English  gentleman  bearing  her  name 
had  died,  leaving  a  considerable  property,  the  heirs  to 
which  were  supposed  to  live  in  this  country.  Various 
members  of  her  family  became  interested  in  the  matter, 
and  one  of  them  went  to  England  for  the  purpose  of 
making  inquiries  and  prosecuting  claims.  It  appeared, 
however,  that  they  were  not  the  heirs  of  this  man ;  and 
the  property  went  in  another  direction.  But  the  idea 
thus  suggested  to  her  mind  of  being  entitled  to  property 
in  England  was  never  abandoned  by  Miss  A.,  though  in 
her  later  years  she  said  but  little  about  it.  It  was  ac- 
companied by  suspicions  of  foul  play,  and  of  attempts 
upon  her  life  on  the  part  of  those  who  might  better 
their  own  claims  by  getting  her  out  of  the  way. 


384  THE   ANGELL   WILL   CASE. 

Thus  far  the  mental  disorder  had  not  a  very  wide  or 
conspicuous  operation.  It  was  not  obvious  to  the  world, 
and  interfered  with  none  of  the  ordinary  performances 
of  life.  A  naturally  active  mind,  a  good  education,  an 
agreeable  person,  and  social  advantages,  masked  the 
morbid  traits  of  her  character,  and  enabled  her  to  bear 
her  allotted  part  in  life  with  tolerable  credit.  Even  those 
best  acquainted  with  the  workings  of  her  mind  would 
venture  only  to  call  her  peculiar  or  fanciful.  Neverthe- 
less, the  morbid  element  was  steadity,  though  slowly, 
gaining  strength,  when  it  received  an  extraordinary 
stimulus  from  the  reading  of  those  old  letters.  The 
unusual  circumstances  attending  her  father's  death,  and 
the  air  of  mystery  in  which  that  event  as  well  as  the 
whole  history  of  his  residence  in  the  South  was  enveloped, 
had  furnished  food  for  much  morbid  reflection  ;  but  now, 
for  the  first  time,  her  ideas  assumed  definite  shape.  In 
her  suspicious  and  credulous  temper,  the  mention  there 
made  of  her  own  Christian  name  in  connection  with 
money  and  investments  afforded  confirmation  strong  as 
holy  writ  of  the  traditional  belief  that  her  father  had 
married  a  rich  planter's  widow,  and  died  leaving  a  large 
estate  ;  while  it  also  suggested  the  additional  belief  that 
that  estate  had  belonged  to  her  as  her  father's  heir, 
but  somehow  had  been  wrested  from  her  by  dishonest 
uncles.  The  marvellous  improbability  of  the  whole 
tissue  of  events  supposed  in  this  belief  caused  neither 
hesitation  nor  doubt.  Ever  after,  she  did  not  suspect, 
but  she  believed  with  her  whole  heart  and  her  whole 
soul,  that  she  had  been  robbed  by  her  own  relatives  of  a 
valuable  estate.  Habitually  dwelling  on  this  idea,  she 
was  always  seeing  in  every  occurrence  some  fresh  proof 
of  the  existence  of  this  estate,  and  of  the  iniquity  which 
defrauded  her  out  of  it.     Did  a  relative  build  a  block  of 


THE    AKGELL   WILL   CASE.  385 

stores,  he  certainly  must  have  obtained  the  means  from 
her  property.  Did  another  send  his  boys  to  a  boarding 
school,  his  salary  was  too  small  to  allow  such  an  expense, 
and  it  could  have  been  derived  only  from  her  property. 
When  one  of  them  went  to  Virginia,  it  was  for  the  pur- 
pose of  visiting  her  plantations.  The  style  of  house- 
keeping in  which  her  relatives  indulged  was  diligently 
scrutinized,  in  order  to  show  that  they  were  living  be- 
yond their  ostensible  means,  and  of  course  on  the  fruits 
of  iniquity.  A  belief  originating  and  entertained  like 
this  can  be  called  by  one  name  only, —  delusion;  and 
delusion  is  insanity. 

Its  first  fruit  was  an  excessive  anxiety  to  ascertain 
where  that  property  was,  and  for  this  purpose  it  was 
necessary  to  learn  when  and  where  her  father  died. 
While  her  mother  and  brother  were  living,  she  could  do 
but  little.  They  did  not  share  in  her  belief;  and  seeing 
that  the  subject,  when  introduced,  always  excited  her, 
they  lent  her  no  assistance  in  prosecuting  her  inquiries. 
After  their  death,  however,  she  was  free  to  pursue  the 
desire  of  her  heart,  without  let  or  hinderance  from  others. 
The  very  difficulty  of  getting  information  only  strength- 
ened her  delusion,  for  to  her  distempered  fancy  the  fact 
that  they  to  whom  she  applied  professed  to  be  utterly 
ignorant  was  conclusive  proof  that  they  were  partici- 
pants in  the  crime.  With  her  relatives,  servants,  and 
some  others,  it  was  the  prevailing  theme  of  her  dis- 
course ;  while  in  every  descendant  of  those  faithless 
uncles,  whatever  his  position  or  character,  she  saw  a 
foe  fattening  upon  the  spoils  of  her  father's  estate,  and 
perhaps  seeking  her  life  in  order  to  avoid  exposure. 
At  last  the  original  letter  containing  the  account  of  her 
father's  death,  burial,  &c,  fell  into  her  hands ;  and  thus 
she  was  enabled  to  confirm  her  traditionary  belief,  so  far 

25 


386  THE   ANGELL   WILL   CASE. 

as  it  went.  At  last  she  ascertained  precisely  what  prop- 
erty her  father  had  possessed,  and  what  he  left  behind 
him.  But  the  information  came  too  late.  For  years 
her  belief  had  been  a  delusion,  and  the  most  palpable 
proofs  of  his  absolute  destitution  did  not  shake  it  in 
the  slightest  degree. 

During  the  latter  years  of  her  life  it  is  obvious  that 
the  mental  infirmity  had  greatly  extended  its  influence. 
The  fear  of  being  poisoned  had  steadily  increased,  until 
the  circle  of  the  suspected  embraced  many  of  her  kins- 
folk and  most  of  her  servants.  To  this  was  added  the 
fear  of  foes  from  without  as  well  as  foes  within.  Doors 
and  windows  were  kept  fastened  day  and  night,  and  she 
retired  to  rest  in  a  bed  surrounded  by  fire-arms.  The 
suspicion  and  distrust  of  her  earlier  years  were  con- 
verted at  last  into  utter  disbelief  of  human  honesty. 
All,  from  the  kind  old  Baptist  deacon  who  managed  her 
charities,  to  the  honest  old  Quaker  who  managed  her 
farm ;  from  the  cherished  friend  of  her  brother,  unceas- 
ing in  his  offices  of  kindness  towards  her,  to  the  humble 
cousin  who  was  ever  her  willing  drudge,  —  all  were,  in 
her  eyes,  cheats,  thieves,  and  liars.  To  the  broadest 
moral  distinctions  she  became  insensible,  charging  with 
fraud  and  malice  persons  whose  company  and  assistance 
she  courted,  and  putting  into  the  hands  of  the  man  who 
was  to  watch  her  premises  the  instruments  of  death, 
with  directions  to  use  them  upon  the  first  one  who  came 
along.  The  management  of  her  property  now  betrays 
that  lack  of  mental  vigor,  and  the  style  of  her  house- 
keeping that  insensibility  to  little  conveniences  and  pro- 
prieties, which  mark  the  progress  of  her  malady  no  less 
clearly  than  other  more  demonstrative  traits ;  and  thus 
year  after  year,  for  the  greater  portion  of  her  life,  she 
was  brought  more  and  more  under  the  influence  of  dis- 


THE   ANGELL   WILL   CASE.  387 

ease,  though  seldom,  if  ever,  deprived  entirely  of  self- 
control,  or  all  sense  of  the  fitness  of  things.  To  say  that 
she  was  therefore  not  insane,  is  merely  to  say  that  she 
was  not  a  raving  maniac  nor  a  stupid  clod,  devoid  of  all 
sense  and  reason. 

It  may  be  worth  our  while  to  observe  that  this  case 
involves  some  questions  touching  the  effect  of  mental 
disease  on  the  testamentary  capacity,  that  are  not  yet 
definitely  settled.  In  cases  where  a  will  has  been 
disputed  on  the  ground  of  insanity,  the  kind  of  mental 
impairment  alleged  has  generally  been  that  which  ac- 
companies congenital  imbecility,  paralysis,  acute  disease 
of  some  bodily  organ,  the  decay  of  old  age,  intoxication. 
It  consists  of  enfeeblement  rather  than  perversion,  and 
affects  the  memory  and  judgment  rather  than  the  opin- 
ions and  sentiments.  These  cases  involved  simply  a 
question  of  capacity,  and  courts  were  always  seeking 
some  standard  by  which  the  testamentary  capacity  could 
be  measured.  In  the  case  of  imbeciles,  the  ability  to 
count  ten,  to  tell  the  day  of  the  week,  or  measure  a 
yard  of  cloth,  was  once  considered  evidence  of  a  dispos- 
ing mind ;  and  though  the  standard  was  raised  in  later 
times,  it  was  still  an  arbitrary  one,  having  no  necessary 
relation  to  the  thing  compared  with  it.  In  other  cases 
of  mental  enfeeblement,  courts  have  said  that  the  testa- 
tor should  possess  mind  sufficient  to  transact  the  com- 
mon business  of  life,  or  be  capable  of  making  a  contract, 
or  doing  any  other  binding  act.  And  this  was  the  com- 
mon doctrine,  until  it  was  discovered,  almost  within 
our  own  generation,  that  some  wills  require  a  stronger 
understanding  and  a  wider  comprehension  than  some 
contracts,  and  vice  versa.  This  led  to  what  may  now  be 
considered  a  settled  principle,  viz.,  that  the  testamentary 
capacity  must  be  estimated  in  reference  to  the   circum- 


388  THE   ANGELL   WILL   CASE. 

stances  of  the  particular  act  itself.  Thus,  a  will  dispos- 
ing of  a  large  amount  of  property  to  various  persons, 
for  various  purposes,  and  under  various  conditions,  re- 
quires a  larger  capacity  than  one  devising  a  small  prop- 
erty to  the  only  two  or  three  relatives  the  testator  may 
have,  or  than  a  contract  marked  by  few  and  simple 
conditions. 

No  sooner  was  this  principle  favored  by  courts,  than 
it  was  found  too  narrow  to  cover  all  the  ground  which 
the  subject  presents.  A  class  of  cases  began  to  make 
their  appearance  in  which  the  testator,  while  possessing 
many  of  the  highest  powers  and  the  ordinary  traits  of  a 
sane  mind,  —  transacting  business  correctly,  mingling  in 
society  without  exciting  surprise,  and  discharging  cred- 
itably the  duties  of  a  good  citizen,  —  was  bereft  of  reason 
in  relation  to  certain  subjects,  believing  notions  utterly 
impossible  in  the  nature  of  things  or  the  circumstances 
of  the  case.  Under  the  principle  just  mentioned,  such  a 
person  could  not  be  pronounced  intestable;  but  if  the 
delusion  had  reference  to  persons  whose  interests  were 
thereby  affected  in  the  dispositions  of  the  will,  then,  very 
clearly,  the  will  might  have  been  the  offspring  of  in- 
sanity ;  and  if  it  were,  then,  in  spite  of  all  the  rules  and 
definitions,  it  ought  not  to  stand  ;  and  so  it  appeared  to  the 
court  in  one  of  the  earliest  cases  reported,  —  that  of  Green- 
wood, who  disinherited  his  brother  under  the  delusion 
that  he  had  been  poisoned  by  him.  On  an  appeal,  how- 
ever, this  decision  was  reversed  by  Lord  Kenyon,  who, 
while  he  admitted  the  hardship  of  the  case  to  the  sur- 
viving brother,  felt  unwilling  to  quit  the  old  landmarks. 
Some  years  afterwards  a  case  of  this  description  —  Dew 
v.  Clark  —  was  decided  in  Doctors'  Commons,  under  the 
benigner  spirit  of  the  civil  law,  by  Sir  John  Phillimore, 
in  whose  long  and  elaborate  judgment  the  true  principle 


THE  AXGELL  WILL   CASE.  389 

which  should  govern  this  class  of  cases  was  maintained 
with  so  much  clearness  and  ability  that  it  has  been  ac- 
cepted, with  scarcely  a  murmur  of  dissent,  as  the  estab- 
lished law  of  the  land.  Finding  that  the  testator  was 
insane  on  the  subject  of  his  daughter,  whom  he  had  dis- 
inherited, he  pronounced  against  the  will ;  the  question 
at  issue  being,  not  whether  the  insanity  would  vitiate 
any  will  ("  a  will  generally  ")  of  the  deceased,  but  this 
identical  will. 

One  more  class  of  cases  remained  to  be  disposed  of,  — 
that  where  the  insanity  is  not  only  partial  and  limited, 
but  has  had  no  influence,  apparently,  on  the  testamen- 
tary act.  Is  every  insane  person  to  be  deemed  intes- 
table, however  partial  the  disease,  and  however  free  from 
its  influence  the  testamentary  act  may  be,  or  only  so 
when  the  act  is  shaped  and  colored  by  the  disease  ?  In 
the  only  reported  case 1  where  this  question  has  been 
clearly  mooted,  Lord  Brougham  came  out  strongly  in 
favor  of  the  former  opinion,  and,  in  the  course  of  his 
discussion,  even  questioned  whether  the  advocates  of 
the  latter  opinion  would  have  the  courage  to  say  that 
the  will  of  the  man  who  declared  that  he  was  the  Christ 
should  be  admitted  to  probate,  though  it  bore  no  marks 
whatever  of  an  unsound  mind.2  This  is  an  extreme  case, 
and  the  courage  which  would  be  wanting  here  might 
be  found  amply  sufficient  in  those  far  more  numerous 
ones  where  the  mental  affection  is  less  extravagant  and 
absurd. 


1  Waring  v.  Waring,  6  Moore,  P.  C.  Cases,  349. 

2  Lord  Brougham's  doctrine  was  approved  by  Lord  Penzance  in  Smith 
v.  Tibbetts,  36  L.  J.  R.,  x.s.,  Probate  Court,  97  (1867),  and  subsequently- 
disapproved  by  the  Court  of  Queen's  Bench,  in  Banks  v.  Goodfellow,  39 
L.  J.  R.,  N.8.,  Q.  B.  257  ;  5  L.  R.,  Q.  B.  54  ;  Lord  Chief  Justice  Cockburn 
delivering  the  opinion  of  the  Court. 


390  THE  ANGELL  WILL   CASE. 

In  this  country,  the  law  would  seem  to  be  complicated 
by  the  legislative  acts  that  have  been  passed  in  the  dif- 
ferent States  on  the  subject  of  the  will-making  power. 
In  Rhode  Island,  for  instance,  it  has  been  enacted  that, 
to  make  a  valid  will,  a  person  must,  among  other  qualifi- 
cations, possess  a  "  sane  mind."  If  this  language  is  to 
be  taken  literally,  then  certainly  no  distinctions  as  to  the 
nature  or  extent  of  the  disease  can  be  compatible  with 
a  due  observance  of  the  law,  which  requires  nothing  less 
than  the  implicit  adoption  of  Lord  Brougham's  rule.  It 
will  be  contended,  no  doubt,  that  this  language  must  be 
interpreted  by  the  rules  of  the  English  law ;  in  other 
words,  that  the  meaning  of  one  of  our  statutes  must  be 
determined,  not  by  the  ordinary  signification  of  terms, 
but  by  the  decisions  of  English  courts,  not  in  themselves 
harmonious.  Such  a  course  would  be  in  curious  con- 
trast to  that  usual  adherence  to  the  language  of  a  stat- 
ute which  allows  the  intentions  of  the  legislator  to  be 
completely  frustrated  by  a  misplaced  preposition,  or  an 
improper  tense  or  mood.  It  adds  another  leaf  to  the 
chapter  of  contradictions  and  inconsistencies  which 
form  so  large  a  part  of  the  law  of  insanity. 


MANAGEMENT   OF   HOSPITALS   FOR 
THE   INSANE. 


Hospitals  for  the  insane,  conceived  in  the  modern 
spirit,  came  in  with  the  present  century.  Establish- 
ments for  the  custody  and  treatment  of  the  insane  had 
existed,  sometimes  in  connection  with  general  hospitals 
of  which  they  constituted  a  department,  and  sometimes 
separately,  and  independently  of  any  other.  In  Eng- 
land, buildings  were  erected  expressly  for  the  purpose ; 
but  on  the  continent  old  monasteries  were,  at  one  time, 
almost  exclusively  used.  In  these  rude,  prison-like 
structures,  patients  were  herded  together  without  much 
attempt  at  classification  ;  while  every  arrangement,  every 
incident  of  management,  was  founded  on  the  idea  that, 
in  mental  disease,  violence  and  insubordination  are  the 
rule,  not  the  exception,  to  be  met  and  overcome  "by 
opposing  force.  No  attempt  was  made  to  act  directly 
on  the  mind  by  means  of  work,  books,  or  amusements. 
Drugs  were  thought  to  be  the  only  thing  that  promised 
any  good,  and  they  certainly  were  allowed  to  have 
their  perfect  work.  At  the  old  Bethlehem,  in  Lon- 
don, it  was  customary,  up  to  no  very  remote  period, 
in  addition  to  the  special  medication  supposed  to  be 
required  in  each  particular  case,  to  bleed  and  physic 
most  of  the  patients  every  spring.     Instruments  of  re- 


392  MANAGEMENT    OF   HOSPITALS. 

straint  were  abundant.  Day  in  and  day  out,  patients 
were  confined  to  their  chairs  or  benches,  for  months, 
if  not  years  together ;  and  many  who  were  free  by  day 
were  chained  to  their  beds  by  night,  lest  they  might 
possibly  do  themselves  some  harm.  At  last,  this  dreary 
record  of  cruelty  and  contumely,  of  ignorance  and  un- 
skilfulness,  was  finished.  At  last,  the  insane  came  to 
be  recognized  as  possessing,  in  some  degree,  at  least, 
the  attributes  of  humanity,  and  therefore  as  fit  subjects 
for  the  ameliorating  arts  of  philanthropy  and  science. 
The  point  gained  was  not  the  mere  disuse  of  chains, 
nor  the  reform  of  gross  abuses,  but  the  general  recog- 
nition of  the  fact  that  the  management  of  the  insane 
is  a  matter  of  scientific  inquiry  and  experiment,  and, 
consequently,  always  and  forever,  susceptible  of  im- 
provement. The  result  has  been  what  might  naturally 
be  expected,  when  men  begin  to  aim  at  something  be- 
yond an  old  routine.  Every  year  witnessed  some  new 
advance  ;  and,  on  looking  back,  it  is  easy  to  discern  the 
broad  interval  between  the  uncouth,  cold,  dark,  jail-like 
structure  and  the  well-warmed,  well-lighted,  well-venti- 
lated, commodious,  and  even  elegant  edifice,  abounding 
in  the  conveniences  and  amenities  of  a  domestic  resi- 
dence ;  between  the  harsh  and  peremptory  keeper  with 
command  in  his  look  and  a  bunch  of  keys  at  his  girdle 
and  the  courteous  attendant  who  gently  leads  his  charge 
in  the  ways  of  propriety  and  decorum;  between  the 
discomfort  of  needless  restraint  and  the  enjoyment  of 
the  largest  liberty  compatible  with  the  end  in  view ; 
between  the  irksomeness  of  perpetual  idleness  and  vacu- 
ity and  the  buoyant  sensations  that  spring  from  mental 
and  physical  occupation. 

In  this  retrospect,  we  may  also  discern  an  incident 
characteristic   of    most  reformatory  movements,  —  the 


MANAGEMENT    OF    HOSPITALS.  393 

tendency  to  run  to  opposite  extremes;  and  perhaps  I 
could  not  better  use  this  occasion  than  to  consider  it 
with  some  degree  of  particularity.  The  reformer's 
creed  frequently  contains  but  a  single  article  of  belief; 
namely  this,  because  a  thing  is  bad  therefore  the 
directly  opposite  thing  is  necessarily  good.  The  effect 
of  this  fallacy  has  been  strikingly  manifested,  for  in- 
stance, in  the  controversy,  not  yet  settled,  respecting 
mechanical  restraint  as  applied  to  the  insane.  Every- 
body admits  that  it  has  been  grossly  abused,  but  an 
immense  difference  prevails  as  to  the  practical  inference 
that  should  be  drawn  from  the  fact.  While  it  leads  one 
party  to  use  it  for  proper  purposes  and  in  a  judicious 
manner,  so  as  to  secure  its  benefits  and  avoid  its  evils, 
it  leads  another  to  disuse  it  altogether  as  an  unmiti- 
gated wrong.  Of  course,  abundant  reasons  are  offered 
for  the  correctness  of  each  of  these  conclusions,  and 
they  are  not  without  their  force;  but — in  accordance 
with  a  common  phasis  of  belief — they  have  probably 
less  to  do  with  actual  opinions,  than  a  state  of  feeling 
antecedent  to  all  reasons.  This  accounts  for  the  diffi- 
culty of  arriving  at  the  truth  in  all  questions  of  practi- 
cal reform  ;  but  the  number  of  those  who  learn  from  it 
a  lesson  of  caution  against  hasty  conclusions  will  always 
be  small.  In  the  present  case  there  is  a  touch  of  the 
romantic  in  the  idea  of  managing  the  insane  entirely 
without  mechanical  restraint,  and  solely  by  moral  sua- 
sion or  the  gentle  laying  on  of  hands ;  and  when  first 
announced,  it  is  not  strange  that  it  was  taken  at  once 
into  public  favor.  It  had  all  the  eclat  of  a  great  dis- 
covery, worthy  of  being  compared  with  that  of  anaes- 
thetics or  the  vaccine  virus ;  and  in  England,  where  it 
originated,  it  needed  more  than  an  average  share  of 
moral  courage  to  regard  it  with  the  slightest  distrust. 


394  MANAGEMENT   OF   HOSPITALS. 

One  thing  leads  to  another ;  and  the  idea  of  complete 
non-restraint  was  followed,  in  the  fulness  of  time,  by 
that  of  banishing  all  those  distinctive  architectural 
arrangements  supposed  to  be  indispensable  to  the 
proper  care  and  custody  of  the  insane.  Open  fires  on 
the  hearth,  windows  without  guards,  and  doors  with- 
out locks,  have  been  adopted  in  one  or  two  hospitals 
lately  erected  in  England.  It  is  not  surprising  that 
men  of  a  sanguine,  philanthropic  temper,  should  hail 
such  innovations  with  their  warmest  approval,  and  that 
under  the  pressure  of  public  sentiment  they  should 
be  sustained,  temporarily  at  least,  at  all  hazards.  The 
careful  observer,  who  studies  insanity  like  any  other 
object  of  scientific  investigation,  will  hardly  be  satisfied 
with  the  reasons  offered  for  such  a  radical  reform  ;  and 
though  willing  to  accept  results  as  the  proper  tests  of 
their  soundness,  he  will  require  that  the  experiment 
shall  be  tried  on  a  large  scale,  by  various  parties,  and 
its  indirect  and  contingent  as  well  as  immediate  results 
be  fairly  taken  into  the  account.  No  experiment  in 
the  management  of  the  insane  can  be  considered  suc- 
cessful, merely  because  no  indications  of  failure  are 
visible  for  a  limited  period,  or  under  peculiar  circum- 
stances. For  the  very  object  may  be,  not  to  prevent 
an  evil  which  otherwise  would  be  sure  to  happen,  but 
to  meet  a  contingency  that  may  never  occur.  The 
mere  fact  that  it  does  not  occur  has  no  necessary  con- 
nection with  the  means  of  prevention.  No  one  at  all 
conversant  with  hospitals  for  the  insane  can  have  failed 
to  see  that,  in  some  degree,  their  results  are  apparently 
a  matter  of  chance.  To  attribute  them  entirely  and 
exclusively  to  management  would  be  no  mark  of  wis- 
dom. The  man  who  congratulates  himself  on  the  suc- 
cess of  his  measures  for  preventing  suicide,  on  account 


MANAGEMENT   OF   HOSPITALS.  395 

of  entire  exemption  for  several  years,  will  find  his  self- 
complacency  somewhat  ruffled  when,  without  any  change 
of  practice,  several  cases  occur  in  rapid  succession.  So, 
too,  he  may  find  that  the  large  proportion  of  recoveries, 
and  the  small  proportion  of  deaths  and  casualties,  which, 
for  a  time,  seemed  to  be  indisputable  proofs  of  his  skill, 
are  attributable  to  causes  over  which  he  had  little  or 
no  control.  Now,  to  ascertain  how  far  this  element  of 
chance  prevails,  must  always  be  a  work  of  time  :  and  we 
may  fairly  challenge  the  soundness  of  any  conclusions 
where  sufficient  account  has  not  been  made  of  its  in- 
fluence. 

Another  error  very  incident  to  measures  of  reform 
in  our  specialty  is  to  mistake  individual  traits  for  gen- 
eral conditions,  and  thus  conclude,  prematurely,  that 
what  is  applicable  to  one  case  is  no  less  applicable  to 
all.  Diversities  of  disease,  of  previous  management,  of 
natural  character,  may  all  be  ignored,  and  some  pro- 
crustean  plan  regarded  as  embodying  all  the  wisdom 
worth  retaining.  A  patient  long  subjected  to  mechani- 
cal restraint  improves  under  its  disuse ;  therefore  no 
patient  requires  it,  and  complete  non-restraint  must 
be  the  unexceptionable  rule.  Another  is  annoyed  by 
the  sight  of  locks  and  guards,  which,  in  fact,  are  un- 
necessary for  him  ;  therefore  they  are  annoying  to  all 
and  unnecessary  for  any.  Another  desires  to  go  out 
unattended,  and  undoubtedly  is  all  the  better  for  the 
privilege ;  therefore  unrestricted  freedom  in  this  par- 
ticular should  be  the  general  rule.  Deductions  like 
these  may  seem  somewhat  puerile,  but  they  are  scarcely 
exaggerations  of  what  have  actually  been  made.  Now, 
with  all  admiration  for  the  spirit  underlying  these  pro- 
jected reforms,  I  am  still  obliged  to  doubt  whether  they 
do  not  exhibit  some  confusion  of  thought,  both  as  to 


396  MANAGEMENT   OF   HOSPITALS. 

the  ends  which  are  proposed  and  the  conditions  of  a 
successful  experiment.  These  two  questions  it  may 
be  well  to  consider  for  a  moment,  beginning  with  the 
latter. 

Morbid  movements  of  the  nervous  system  often  require 
considerable  time  for  their  completion,  and  are  marked 
by  a  certain  periodicity  not  apparent  in  other  affections. 
What  we  happen  to  see  may  be  but  a  single  phasis  of 
the  movement,  to  be  followed  by  others  equally  promi- 
nent, before  the  morbid  cycle  is  completed.  What  it 
may  reveal  precisely,  we  cannot  predict  before  it  is 
completed.  Now,  a  kind  of  management  that  may  be 
very  proper  in  regard  to  one  of  these  phases  may  not 
be  so  in  regard  to  another,  because  the  wishes  and 
feelings  of  the  patient,  the  force  of  his  impulses  and  the 
gravity  of  his  disease,  may  present  the  utmost  possible 
difference.  An  inflexible  rule  of  management,  by  ig- 
noring these  diversities,  must  necessarily  occasion  much 
mischief,  directly  or  indirectly ;  and  not  more  does  the 
individual  differ  from  himself  at  different  periods,  than 
does  the  general  condition  of  the  house.  The  expedi- 
ency of  non-restraint,  for  instance,  might  be  very  differ- 
ently manifested,  even  in  the  same  establishment,  at 
different  periods,  insomuch  that  several  months  of  com- 
plete disuse  of  restraint  might,  very  properly,  be  fol- 
lowed by  as  long  a  period  of  its  abundant  use.  We 
should  not  suppose  we  had  cured  a  case  of  epilepsy  or 
hysteria,  merely  because  the  period  since  the  last  fit  has 
been  much  longer  than  any  previous  interval ;  or  that  a 
maniacal  patient  had  recovered,  because  the  high  ex- 
citement had  passed  away  and  he  replied  to  a  few  ques- 
tions correctly  ;  why,  then,  should  we  be  required  to 
accept  any  principle  of  management  which  has  been 
tried,  however  successfully,  on  a  limited  scale  and  for  a 


MANAGEMENT   OF    HOSPITALS.  397 

limited  period  ?  It  is  no  satisfactory  reply  to  the  patent 
objections  that  lie  against  this  or  that  arrangement,  to 
say  that  no  harm  has  arisen  from  it,  so  far.  Great 
care,  aided  by  great  good  luck,  may  unquestionably 
save  us  sometimes  from  the  legitimate  effects  of  a  faulty 
arrangement.  But  in  any  provision  relative  to  the  man- 
agement of  the  insane,  it  should  be  implicitly  required 
that  its  operation  shall  depend  as  little  as  possible 
on  the  chances  of  fortune  or  the  short-comings  of  men. 
Its  merit  should  consist,  in  a  great  measure,  in  its  inde- 
pendence of  these  contingencies.  Success,  in  spite  of 
manifest  danger,  would  be  a  very  feeble  argument  in 
favor  of  repeating  the  experiment.  To  say  of  it  that 
we  have  got  along  under  it  without  any  untoward 
event,  is  to  render  but  a  vulgar  estimate  of  success, 
though  one  most  intelligible,  perhaps,  to  the  multitude. 
Let  us  bear  in  mind,  too,  that  a  broader  field  of  trial,  a 
wider  scope  of  comparison,  a  more  impartial  judgment 
of  results,  is  necessary,  than  any  single  individual  can 
fairly  claim. 

Much  error  has  been  committed  on  this  subject,  in 
consequence  of  misunderstanding  the  proper  ends  of 
any  reformatory  measure  in  the  management  of  the 
insane.  The  philosophical  test  of  social  and  political  re- 
form —  the  greatest  happiness  of  the  greatest  number  — 
must  not  be  exclusively  adopted  here.  A  provision  is 
not  to  be  hastily  discarded  merely  because  it  has  been 
attended  by  abuses,  or  because  its  evils,  on  the  whole, 
seem  to  overbalance  its  benefits.  The  careful  inquirer 
will  first  ascertain  whether,  by  some  administrative 
change,  the  former  may  not  be  prevented,  and  the  lat- 
ter retained.  To  give  up  a  provision  which  is  known 
to  serve  an  excellent  purpose,  because  in  the  hands  of 
the  careless  and  heartless  it  has  been  made  an  instru- 


MANAGEMENT    OF   HOSPITALS. 

ment  of  wrong,  may  be  wise  under  some  circumstances, 
but  can  hardly  be  considered  a  triumph  of  professional 
skill.  True  science,  true  skill,  consist  in  meeting  the 
exigencies  of  each  particular  case  ;  and  though  these 
must  sometimes  be  subordinate  to  the  general  good,  this 
necessity  must  be  regarded  as  a  defect  rather  than  a 
merit.  The  question  we  have  to  deal  with  is,  how 
we  can  best  reach  the  needs  of  each  one  of  those  indi- 
viduals who  make  up  the  collective  body  under  our 
charge  ;  and  so  long  as  we  keep  this  end  before  us,  we 
may  be  sure  we  are  on  the  right  course.  When,  how- 
ever, we  strive  after  something  above  and  beyond  this, 
seeking,  for  instance,  to  establish  some  general  rule  or 
practice  calculated  to  strike  the  fancy  and  to  win  the 
applause  of  the  inconsiderate,  there  is  great  danger  that 
the  other  and  more  important  end  will  come  to  hold  an 
inferior  place  in  our  regard.  There  may  be  no  incom- 
patibility between  these  ends,  for  many,  I  doubt  not, 
are  steadily  keeping  them  both  in  view ;  but  there  is 
a  natural  tendency  to  seek  that  which  is  most  easily 
appreciated  by  all  who  look  only  on  the  outside,  and 
which,  by  such,  would  be  regarded  as  indicative  of 
originality  and  vigor.  We  see  it  in  the  idea  too  often 
put  forth,  of  claiming  merit  for  encountering  great  risks 
with  but  little  actual  damage.  So  many  epileptics  have 
frequented  a  room  having  an  open  fire,  so  many  uneasy, 
discontented  patients  have  been  allowed  to  go  and  come 
as  they  please,  so  many  pugnacious  ones  have  mingled 
freely  with  the  rest,  so  many  homicidal  ones  have  been 
intrusted  with  edge-tools ;  and  yet  nobody  has  fallen 
into  the  fire,  nobody  has  eloped,  nobody  has  been  struck, 
nobody  has  been  killed  or  wounded.  As  if  such  a  re- 
sult might  not  possibly  have  been  a  remarkable  instance 
of  good   fortune   rather  than   the    sign   and  seal  of  a 


MANAGEMENT    OF   HOSPITALS.  399 

blessed  reform  ;  and  as  if  the  welfare  of  the  individual 
patient  were  a  matter  of  little  concern  compared  with 
the  working  of  a  general  rule.  I  would  not  be  under- 
stood as  saying,  that  in  the  management  of  the  insane 
we  are  to  incur  no  risks  whatever ;  in  other  words,  that 
we  are  to  withhold  from  them  every  privilege  and  the 
slightest  measure  of  freedom,  because  they  might  possi- 
bly abuse  them.  The  whole  theory  of  modern  manage- 
ment implies  risk,  to  be  avoided,  however,  as  much 
as  possible,  by  the  exercise  of  discernment  and  tact. 
Sometimes,  indeed,  a  desirable  end  can  be  obtained 
only  through  more  or  less  risk,  and  on  the  general 
question  there  can  be  but  one  opinion.  But  such  risks 
must  be  carefully  distinguished  from  those  which  in- 
volve the  welfare  of  others,  or  tend  only  to  glorify  indi- 
viduals. If  an  attempt  to  benefit  a  particular  patient 
by  some  exercise  of  risk,  applicable  solely  to  him,  fail, 
he  alone  is  affected  ;  and  if  the  circumstances  fairly 
justified  the  attempt,  he  cannot  complain.  But  if,  while 
it  is  applied  to  one  person,  its  consequences  fall  upon 
another,  then  the  latter  has  good  reason  to  be  aggrieved. 
When  a  sanguine  believer  in  non-restraint  systemati- 
cally exposes  his  patients  to  the  assaults  of  those  who 
are  inclined  to  such  mischief,  in  the  vain  expectation 
that  any  practical  amount  of  vigilance  can  obviate 
actual  harm,  he  will  hardly  be  able  to  justify  the 
occurrence  of  unpleasant  casualties  by  pleading  the 
common  good.  The  sufferers  would  reply,  and  very 
properly  too,  that  they  were  placed  under  his  care 
for  their  own  particular  good,  and  not  for  the  purpose 
of  enabling  him  to  work  out  some  favorite  theory. 
And  they  might  also  say  that  they  were  so  placed, 
mainly  for  the  purpose  of  being  saved  from  themselves 
and  others. 


400  MANAGEMENT   OF   HOSPITALS. 

I  believe  that  the  reasons  urged  in  favor  of  some  of 
these  reformatory  measures  are  founded  in  incorrect 
notions  of  insanity,  and  especially  of  the  thoughts  and 
feelings  of  the  insane.  It  is  contended  that  the  safe- 
guards which  have  been  placed  around  the  patient 
should  be  removed,  because  they  are  supposed  to  annoy 
him  by  constantly  reminding  him  of  his  infirmity,  and 
proclaiming  from  every  door  and  window  that  he  can- 
not be  trusted.  Unquestionably,  in  a  small  proportion 
of  cases,  restraint  of  any  kind  is  disagreeable,  and,  per- 
haps, unnecessary ;  but  it  is  equally  certain  that  to 
many  patients  it  is  not  even  a  source  of  discomfort.  The 
latter  class  have  an  habitual  sense  of  insecurity,  fear  to 
be  left  to  themselves,  and  welcome  the  means  of  restraint. 
Many  of  those,  even,  whose  form  of  disease  is  marked 
by  high  excitement,  feel  at  times  a  consciousness  that 
they  are  unfit  to  be  at  large,  and  recognize  the  necessity 
of  those  abridgments  of  their  freedom  which  a  hospital 
involves.  Much  of  the  repugnance  which  the  insane 
are  supposed  to  feel  to  the  restrictive  arrangements  of 
a  hospital  may  be  fairly  attributed  rather  to  that  cap- 
tious, fault-finding  spirit  so  common  in  the  disease,  than 
to  any  keen  sensibilities  in  the  matter. 

When  restraint  of  any  kind  is  required,  let  it  be 
applied,  we  are  told,  by  the  look  and  the  touch  of  an 
attendant,  not  by  barbarous  implements  of  wood  and 
iron.  Mistakes  have  been  made,  no  doubt,  as  to  the 
amount  of  interference  compatible  with  the  best  in- 
terests of  the  insane,  but  we  ought  not  to  err  very 
widely  as  to  the  amount  of  care  and  vigilance  that  may 
be  reasonably  expected  of  attendants.  Natural  dispo- 
sition and  temperament,  tact  and  culture,  may  aifect  the 
result  somewhat ;  but  we  well  know  that  beyond  a  cer- 
tain point  these  qualities,  in  their  best  estate,  are  per- 


MANAGEMENT    OF    HOSPITALS.  401 

fectly  impotent.  For  a  short  neriod  and  an  imminent 
emergency,  we  may  be  warranted  in  relying  upon  them 
implicitly.  But  lengthen  the  period,  or  render  the  con- 
tingency more  remote  and  uncertain,  and  to  that  extent 
personal  vigilance  becomes  unreliable.  An  attendant 
placed  in  charge  of  a  patient  incessantly  bent  on  self- 
destruction  may  be  safely  relied  on  for  several  hours  ; 
but  let  it  be  his  sole  business  to  prevent  a  patient  from 
striking  when  the  impulse  comes,  which  may  be  but 
once  in  two  or  three  months,  and  who  that  knows  any- 
thing of  the  subject  supposes  that  the  blow  will  not  be 
struck  at  last  ?  The  continuity  of  attention  required 
for  this  purpose  may  not  be  impossible,  but  in  practice 
it  would  be  idle  to  expect  it.  In  fact  there  is  really  no 
relation  between  the  end  and  the  means.  The  question 
is  not  which  of  the  two  kinds  of  restraint,  personal  or 
mechanical,  is  preferable  in  this  case,  but  whether  the 
latter  is  not  the  only  one  capable,  in  the  nature  of  things, 
of  effecting  the  purpose.  Considering  the  matter  in 
reference  to  its  immediate  effects  on  the  patient,  and 
unconnected  with  theories  or  biases,  it  seems  difficult 
to  conceive  how  there  could  be  two  opinions  about  it. 
And  in  the  class  of  cases  where  either  would  be  admis- 
sible, I  have  been  led  by  twenty  years'  experience  to 
believe  that  a  simple  contrivance  of  leather  or  cloth 
placed  on  the  limbs,  performing  its  service  quietly  and 
steadily,  is  infinitely  preferable  to  an  array  of  attendants 
holding  the  hands  and  feet,  and  at  every  relaxation 
of  their  efforts  provoking  renewed  struggles  from  the 
patient. 

It  has  been  of  late  years  somewhat  fashionable  to 
ignore  some  prominent  traits  of  insanity,  or  at  least  to 
suppose  that  they  may  be  kept  in  abeyance  by  devices 
of  management.      The   insane   should  be  treated  more 

26 


402  MANAGEMENT   OF   HOSPITALS. 

like  the  sane,  trusted  with  responsible  duties,  and 
thrown  much  upon  their  own  power  of  self-control.  No 
one  would  dissent  from  the  general  principle  implied  in 
this  statement,  because  it  is  characteristic  of  all  humane 
and  intelligent  management ;  but  unquestionably  some 
have  been  disposed  to  carry  it  to  an  almost  unlimited 
extent.  Among  them  was  one  whose  name  was  inti- 
mately associated  with  the  history  of  our  specialty  in 
this  country.  His  practice  was  to  treat  his  patients  as 
if  governed  by  the  principles,  motives,  and  impulses  of 
sane  men,  until  the  contrary  appeared.  Very  brilliant 
results  sometimes  followed  this  management,  and  some 
not  so  well  calculated  to  recommend  it  for  general 
adoption.  He  was  fond  of  taking  visitors  to  a  window 
and  showing  them  three  or  four  patients  mowing  to- 
gether in  an  adjacent  field,  all  of  whom  had  committed 
homicide.  There  was  something  very  extraordinary, 
no  doubt,  in  such  an  exhibition.  To  those  who  are 
governed  by  appearances  merely,  it  indicated  the 
triumph  of  the  strong  will  and  the  commanding  pres- 
ence over  the  lower  instincts  of  a  diseased  mind,  and 
excited  the  usual  admiration  produced  by  the  mar- 
vellous. 

No  good  can  come  by  shutting  our  eyes  to  an  old 
truth,  merely  because  it  is  old,  and  believing  that  the 
world  has  always  been  mistaken  in  the  idea  that  a  dis- 
position to  mischief  is  a  frequent  element  of  insanity. 
Tamed,  diverted,  modified  it  certainly  may  be;  but  there 
can  be  no  graver  error  than  to  suppose  that,  by  any 
system  of  treatment,  it  may  be  utterly  extinguished. 
And  even  if  it  were  possible  to  eradicate  this  element  of 
the  disease,  there  remains  another  which  should  prevent 
us  from  relying  too  much  on  the  discretion  of  the  insane. 
The   guiding,  determining  power  of  the  patient  —  the 


MANAGEMENT    OF    HOSPITALS.  403 

balance-wheel,  if  I  may  use  the  figure,  which  regulates 
the  mental  movement  —  is  generally  more  or  less  im- 
paired, and  some  foreign  power  must,  to  that  extent, 
take  its  place.  For  this  reason  the  patient  is  taken  from 
home  or  his  customary  surroundings,  where  he  is  fol- 
lowing the  bent  of  his  disordered  fancies,  and  placed 
where  his  liberty  of  action  is  greatly  curtailed,  and  his 
movements  directed  by  others.  To  some,  scarcely  any- 
thing more  is  necessary  than  the  unavoidable  restrictions 
of  the  hospital.  In  others,  the  gravity  of  the  disturbing 
element  may  call  for  the  utmost  amount  of  restriction  at 
our  disposal.  In  some  shape  or  other,  restriction  is  an 
essential  element  in  all  hospital  management  of  insanity; 
but  it  would  be  preposterous  to  contend  that  just  so 
much  or  so  little  is  the  exact  measure  best  suited  to  all 
cases  alike,  or  to  any  considerable  proportion. 

In  the  above  remarks  it  has  been  my  intention  to 
indicate  the  only  channels  which  the  course  of  improve- 
ment can  possibly  take,  and  to  state  my  reasons  for  dis- 
senting from  some  current  opinions  on  this  subject.  I 
am  not  disposed  to  anticipate  only  failure  from  the  most 
skilfully  managed  experiments,  nor  to  regard  free  and 
full  inquiry  in  any  direction  as  useless.  What  may  be 
accomplished  hereafter  must  be  a  matter  of  speculation, 
but  probably  the  future  will  be  much  like  the  past.  Men 
will  continue  to  jump  at  conclusions,  to  imagine  that 
they  have  found  some  royal  road  to  the  desired  object, 
and  that  their  own  new  ways  are  better  than  any  old 
ones.  One  project  after  another  will  pass  away,  but  not 
without  leaving  some  pregnant  suggestion  behind.  In 
the  mean  time,  let  us  be  less  anxious  to  discover  new 
truths  than  to  turn  the  old  ones  to  the  best  possible 
account,  and  then  we  need  have  no  apprehension  that 
the  dark  ages  will  return.     The  latter  object  is  within 


404  MANAGEMENT    OF    HOSPITALS. 

the  reach  of  all ;  the  former  is  reserved  for  the  gifted 
few. 

We  may  bear  in  mind  for  our  encouragement  that  in 
this  country  are  circumstances  peculiarly  favorable  to 
our  progress.  Establishments  for  the  insane  are  every- 
where provided,  in  addition  to  the  usual  executive 
officers,  with  a  board  of  general  direction,  who  watch 
over  their  interests  and  control  more  or  less  their  man- 
agement. This  kind  of  organization  is  simple ;  it  is  in 
accordance  with  the  customs  of  the  land,  and  very  well 
secures  the  object  in  view.  In  England,  some  twenty 
years  ago,  it  occurred  to  a  few  amateur  philanthropists 
that  the  efficiency  of  these  establishments  would  be 
greatly  promoted  by  placing  them  under  the  supervision 
of  a  large  central  board.  Accordingly  such  a  board  was 
created  by  Act  of  Parliament,  and  its  members,  twenty 
in  number,  appointed  by  the  Crown.  They  visit,  once 
at  least  every  year,  by  sub-committees,  every  house, 
whether  public  or  private,  in  which  the  insane  are  kept 
for  hire  ;  make  suggestions  and  recommendations  on 
every  point  connected  with  the  specialty  ;  bestow  cen- 
sure or  praise  with  a  liberal  hand  ;  advise  the  removal 
of  patients,  even,  from  establishments  in  which  they 
have  been  placed  by  friends  ;  recommend,  when  the  case 
seems  to  warrant  it,  the  withdrawal  of  the  license,  with- 
out which  no  private  individual  can  have  charge  of  the 
insane  ;  and  make  an  annual  report  of  their  proceedings 
to  the  Lord  Chancellor.  Their  office  is  advisory  entirely; 
but,  occupying  their  position,  it  will  be  readily  seen  that 
their  suggestions  can  have  scarcely  less  force  than  a 
positive  order.  Under  the  supervision  of  such  a  board, 
it  is  supposed  that  abuses  will  be  seen  and  prevented ; 
that  defects  will  be  pointed  out  and  the  proper  remedy 
suggested ;  that  new  ideas  will  be  disseminated ;    im- 


MANAGEMENT   OF   HOSPITALS.  405 

provements  made  in  one  place  be  rendered  the  common 
property  of  all,  and  a  high  standard  of  excellence  estab- 
lished. These  are  very  desirable  objects  no  doubt ;  the 
only  question  is  as  to  the  qualifications  of  the  commis- 
sioners for  the  appointed  duty.  The  Lord  Chancellor 
may  send  them  forth  under  the  sanction  of  the  highest 
authority  in  the  realm  ;  but  he  can  endow  them  with  no 
knowledge  of  a  specialty  so  peculiar  as  that  of  providing 
for  and  managing  the  insane.  It  can  be  obtained  only 
by  a  long  and  familiar  intercourse  with  them, —  by  a 
practical  acquaintance  with  their  wants,  ways,  manners, 
tendencies,  and  impulses.  It  could  hardly  be  supposed, 
considering  the  ways  of  persons  in  power,  that  many 
such  men  would  receive  the  appointment  merely  on 
account  of  fitness  for  the  office,  without  any  claim  on 
the  score  of  political  service  or  popular  favor,  or  the 
dictation  of  a  powerful  friend  or  clique.  Occasionally 
we  observe  in  the  English  Lunacy  Commission  the  name 
of  some  one  creditably  known  for  professional  attain- 
ments ;  but,  with  these  few  exceptions,  the  members 
are  barristers,  clergymen,  surgeons,  military  officers, 
members  of  Parliament,  country  squires, —  all  very  re- 
spectable gentlemen,  no  doubt,  and  some  of  them  emi- 
nent in  their  respective  lines,  but  who,  previous  to  their 
appointment,  were  probably  never  inside  a  hospital  for 
the  insane,  except  perhaps  as  casual  visitors.  On  some 
points  of  general  direction,  their  education  and  oppor- 
tunities might  enable  them  to  offer  sound  and  seasonable 
advice.  But  on  all  questions  of  a  strictly  special  char- 
acter their  opinion  can  be  worth  nothing ;  and  yet  those 
are  the  questions  with  which  their  mission  is  chiefly 
concerned,  and  on  which  their  views  are  promulgated 
with  all  the  moral,  if  not  legal,  force  of  an  Act  of  Parlia- 
ment.    To  such  views  the  officers  of  the  hospitals  are 


406  MANAGEMENT    OF   HOSPITALS. 

called  upon  to  yield  convictions  which  may  be  the  result 
of  much  study  and  observation,  or  lose  all  their  hold  on 
the  public  confidence.  Had  a  committee  of  just  such 
gentlemen  been  appointed  for  the  purpose  of  improving 
the  condition  of  English  surgery,  and  with  this  object  in 
view  had  visited  the  hospitals  once  or  twice  a  year,  wit- 
nessed the  operations,  inspected  the  instruments,  read 
every  ticket  of  the  diet  and  medicines  prescribed  for 
the  day,  and  then  submitted  to  the  Lord  Chancellor  an 
elaborate  report  of  their  proceedings,  full  of  criticism 
and  counsel,  the  whole  performance  would  have  been 
regarded  by  everybody  as  highly  ridiculous  ;  and  yet  in 
all  essential  conditions  the  cases  are  precisely  parallel. 
Their  opinion  on  the  subject  of  restraint  and  seclusion 
is  actually  worth  as  much  as  their  opinion  on  the  dis- 
puted questions  of  the  circular  and  the  flap  amputation, 
or  the  high  and  the  lateral  operation  for  stone  would  be, — 
neither  more  nor  less.  Even  if  better  qualified  than 
they  actually  are,  their  visits  must  necessarily  be  too 
few  and  far  between  to  furnish  that  full  and  precise 
knowledge  of  the  hospital  which  alone  can  warrant 
either  praise  or  censure.  Only  a  long  succession  of 
visits  will  enable  one  to  become  acquainted  with  its 
prevailing  character  and  spirit,  and  to  distinguish  casual 
incidents  and  temporary  arrangements  from  such  as  con- 
stitute an  inseparable  part  of  the  habitual  routine. 

It  may  be  thought  that  these  objections  to  a  central 
board  of  supervision  would  not  lie  against  it  were  it 
composed  entirely  of  experts,  —  of  men  who  have  had 
much  practical  experience  in  the  management  of  hospi- 
tals. Such  men  would  unquestionably  do  better.  Their 
advice  would  at  least  be  worth  listening  to,  and  many 
of  their  suggestions  might  well  be  adopted ;  but  I  am 
not  sure  that  the  good  thus  done  would  more  than  bal- 


MANAGEMENT   OF   HOSPITALS.  40  7 

ance  the  unavoidable  evil.  Each  one  of  these  men  would 
have  opinions  and  practices  of  his  own.  He  would 
believe  them  to  be  the  best,  and  would  naturally  be 
desirous  of  seeing  them  generally  adopted.  He  might 
disclaim  all  wish  to  force  them  upon  others ;  but  they 
would  none  the  less  influence  his  judgments  respecting 
the  opinions  and  practices  of  other  men.  They  would, 
moreover,  have  the  benefit  of  all  the  prestige  attached 
to  his  official  position,  and  thus  obtain  a  currency  to 
which  their  intrinsic  merits  would  scarcely  entitle  them. 
All  this  would  be  prejudicial  to  true  progress,  which  re- 
quires that  scientific  principles  should  make  their  own 
way  in  the  world,  to  be  finally  accepted  or  rejected, 
according  as  they  stand  the  decisive  tests  of  all  truth. 

Happily  for  us,  one  of  the  principal  reasons  for  a  cen- 
tral supervisory  board  in  England — viz.,  the  large  number 
of  private,  irresponsible  houses  —  does  not  exist  here; 
while  the  political  relations  of  the  States  to  one  another 
would  be  incompatible  with  the  plan  of  a  national  board. 
Thus  our  institutions  are  all  perfectly  exempt  from  ex- 
traneous interference,  the  superintendent  and  directors 
acting  in  their  several  spheres,  under  those  induce- 
ments to  fidelity  found  most  effective  among  men,  —  the 
former,  by  his  learning  and  skill,  promoting  directly  the 
special  object  in  view  ;  the  latter,  by  their  personal  in- 
fluence, securing  the  public  confidence  on  the  strength 
of  their  own  frequent  and  intelligent  supervision.  Noth- 
ing need  prevent  any  board  of  directors  from  being 
composed  of  men  as  competent,  in  point  of  ability  and 
intelligence,  to  promote  the  welfare  of  the  insane  and 
advance  the  general  cause  as  those  of  any  central, 
supervisory  board.  Independent  of  outside  official  in- 
fluence, both  they  and  the  superintendent  are  at  liberty 
to  think  for  themselves  and  to  act  upon  their  own  views. 


408  MANAGEMENT   OF   HOSPITALS. 

They  are  seldom  if  ever  obliged  to  suppress  their  honest 
convictions,  or  conform  to  practices  which  they  do  not 
thoroughly  approve.  It  would  seem  to  be  hardly  neces- 
sary, in  this  age  of  the  world,  to  contend  that,  in  matters 
of  science,  the  freest  possible  expression  and  exercise 
of  opinion  is  essential  to  all  true  progress.  Errors  are 
incident,  no  doubt,  to  free  inquiry  ;  but  they  are  insig- 
nificant when  compared  with  those  which  result,  more 
or  less  directly,  when  the  range  of  inquiry  is  rigidly 
prescribed,  and  all  conclusions  must  conform  to  an 
established  pattern.  If  an  honest  inquirer  gets  upon 
the  wrong  track,  it  is  better  that  he  should  find  it  out 
for  himself,  as  he  generally  will,  than  be  driven  from  it 
by  superior  force.  The  utmost  diversity  of  practices 
and  opinions  would  be  a  surer  sign  of  progress  than  any 
uniformity  which  is  obtained  by  restricting  the  freedom 
of  inquiry. 


THE   EVIDENCE   OF   MEDICAL  EXPERTS. 


In  all  judicial  investigations,  the  matters  of  fact  which 
they  involve  are  derived  from  the  testimony  of  wit- 
nesses. The  exact  manner  in  which  this  testimony  is 
elicited,  and  the  limits  within  which  it  is  confined,  vary 
in  different  countries,  and  to  such  a  degree  as  to  be 
almost  incredible  to  one  who  has  always  associated  in 
his  mind  the  administration  of  justice  with  a  particular 
mode  of  procedure.  In  all  Anglo-Saxon  communities 
the  tendency  has  been,  for  a  considerable  time,  to  con- 
fine testimony  more  and  more  strictly  to  matters  of  fact 
within  the  personal  knowledge  of  the  witness  ;  and  thus 
has  been  gradually  formed  a  body  of  doctrine  called  the 
rules  of  evidence,  marked  by  singular  exactness  and 
discrimination.  One  exception  to  the  general  principle 
has  to  be  permitted.  To  promote  the  ends  of  justice,  it 
sometimes  becomes  necessary  to  obtain  the  opinion  of 
the  witness  rather  than  any  facts  he  may  possess,  be- 
cause what  is  wanted  is,  not  merely  the  naked  facts,  but 
the  inferences  to  be  derived  from  them, —  their  signifi- 
cance with  reference  to  the  points  in  issue.  To  some 
persons  certain  facts  would  imply  nothing  beyond  the 
impression  made  upon  the  senses,  while  to  others  they 
might  signify  the  existence  of  another  order  of  facts  of 
vital  importance.  If  a  person  has  been  particularly  con- 
versant with  that  department  of  knowledge  to  which 


410  MEDICAL    EXPERTS. 

such  facts  belong,  he  may  thus  be  able  to  see  in  them  a 
meaning  utterly  hidden  from  all  who  have  not  had  that 
experience.  The  circumstances  of  a  wound  may  be 
observed  and  described  by  any  one ;  but  whether  that 
wound  would  be  necessarily  fatal  is  a  matter  of  opinion, 
to  be  determined  only  by  those  whose  studies  and  duties 
have  made  them  acquainted  with  the  ultimate  effects  of 
wounds.  The  conduct  and  conversation  of  a  certain 
person  may  be  correctly  related  by  any  one  who  has  ob- 
served him  ;  but  only  those  who  have  witnessed  abnor- 
mal conditions  of  mind  on  a  large  scale  may  be  competent 
to  say  whether  the  mental  manifestations  thus  described 
are  indicative  of  insanity.  Any  nurse  can  tell  us  how  her 
patient  died  shortly  after  taking  a  certain  pill  or  potion, 
but  only  a  physician  can  enlighten  us  as  to  the  actual 
connection  between  the  two  things.  Now  comes  the 
peculiar  difficulty.  Considering  that  every  man's  ex- 
perience differs,  more  or  less,  from  every  other  man's ; 
that  education,  taste,  temperament,  determine  in  some 
degree  the  significance  even  of  the  experience  itself,  it  is 
no  more  than  what  might  be  expected  that  men  should 
often  differ  in  the  conclusions  to  which  they  are  led  by 
the  same  state  of  facts.  And  yet,  natural  as  it  is,  the  fact 
is  freely  attributed  to  a  very  different  cause.  The  cry 
arises  for  some  change  that  shall  place  skilled  testimony 
beyond  the  reach  of  improper  influences,  and  thus  render 
it  perfectly  reliable.  That  it  is  sometimes  vitiated  by 
the  faults  and  infirmities  incident  to  men,  I  would  not 
deny.  Whether  the  popular  complaints  against  skilled 
testimony  are  well  or  ill  founded ;  whether  its  imputed 
defects  are  a  necessary  consequence  of  modern  scientific 
inquiry,  to  be  tolerated  in  connection  with  the  admitted 
merits  of  our  judicial  system;  and  whether  they  can  be 
obviated  by  any  practicable  change  of  the  system,  are 


MEDICAL    EXPERTS.  411 

questions  I  propose  to  discuss  on  this  occasion  ;  and 
though  I  may  be  unable  to  propose  a  remedy  for  all 
the  evils  complained  of,  I  may  at  least  succeed  in  show- 
ing that  the  evil  is  not  unmingled  with  much  good. 

The  first  objection  to  be  noticed  against  skilled  testi- 
mony, as  taken  at  present,  is  that  it  is  notoriously  dis- 
crepant, if  not  contradictory,  and  therefore  unreliable  for 
judicial  purposes.  Nothing  can  better  indicate  the  prev- 
alent vagueness  of  thought  on  this  subject  than  the  idea 
that  the  lack  of  unanimity  in  skilled  testimony  completely 
destroys  its  value  as  evidence.  Lawyers  especially  are 
fond  of  declaring,  as  if  the  fact  were  a  conclusive  proof 
of  this  position,  that  experts  equally  numerous  and 
skilful  may  always  be  obtained  on  both  sides  of  a  case. 
As  if  a  trial  ever  occurred  in  which  the  evidence 
was  perfectly  harmonious,  —  without  the  slightest  dis- 
crepancy in  regard  to  what  the  witnesses  profess  to 
have  seen  and  heard.  Absolute,  unexceptional  agree- 
ment is  never  expected,  because  it  is  a  well-established 
fact  in  human  experience  that  all  men  do  not  see  and 
hear  the  same  things  precisely  alike.  Why  then  expect 
unanimity  in  matters  of  opinion  any  more  than  in  mat- 
ters of  fact  ?  Are  the  conclusions  of  reason  more  exact 
and  uniform  than  impressions  on  the  senses?  If  the 
former  are  to  be  distrusted  and  excluded  from  judicial 
proceedings,  as  some  would  wish,  with  what  consistency 
can  we  admit  the  latter  ?  If  the  one,  with  all  its  dis- 
crepancies, is  to  be  received  as,  on  the  whole,  the  best 
means  for  learning  the  truth,  may  not  the  same  argu- 
ment be  used  in  favor  of  the  other  ? 

Considering  the  proper  function  of  the  expert,  we 
shall  understand  why  skilled  testimony  should  often  be 
discrepant,  and  why,  nevertheless,  it  should  be  indis- 
pensable to  the  purposes  of  justice.   He  is  to  tell  us  the 


412  MEDICAL    EXPERTS. 

significance  of  certain  facts  that  have  appeared  in  evi- 
dence. He  has  made  that  class  of  facts  his  particular 
study.  He  has  enjoyed  opportunities  for  seeing  them 
displayed  on  a  large  scale,  and  under  circumstances 
peculiarly  favorable  to  observation.  He  is  thus  enabled 
to  infer  from  the  naked  facts  the  existence  of  certain 
other  facts,  or  bring  them,  it  may  be,  within  the  range 
of  some  general  truth.  It  does  not  follow,  however,  that 
every  one  thus  qualified  must  arrive  at  precisely  the 
same  conclusions,  for  the  simple  reason  that  all  cannot 
have  had  precisely  the  same  experience.  To  expect 
from  them  invariable  unanimity  whenever  they  appear 
on  the  witness-stand  would  be  as  reasonable  as  to  expect 
every  judicial  decision  to  express  the  united  opinion  of 
the  full  bjench;  that  all  historians  should  agree  respect- 
ing certain  characters  or  events  ;  that  literary  critics 
should  praise  or  condemn  with  one  voice.  Now  do 
scientific  pursuits  insure  any  nearer  approach  to  una- 
nimity of  opinion?  We  know  that  geologists  are  far  from 
being  agreed  concerning  the  condition  of  the  earth  at 
any  previous  period,  as  indicated  by  facts  apparent  alike 
to  all  ;  that  philosophers  differ  respecting  the  correlation 
of  forces ;  that  tillers  of  the  soil,  with  all  their  reliance 
on  practical  experience,  are  agreed  as  to  scarcely  a  sin- 
gle practice  in  husbandry.  Why  then  be  scandalized 
by  the  spectacle  of  chemists,  physicians,  or  surgeons 
uttering  conflicting  opinions  on  any  questions  that  may 
arise  within  the  range  of  their  respective  pursuits? 
Indeed,  agreement  may  imply  less  research,  less  attain- 
ment, than  disagreement.  Lord  Thurlow  once  said  that 
"  the  decrees  of  the  Scotch  judges  were  least  to  be 
respected  when  they  were  unanimous,  as  in  that  case 
they  probably,  without  thought,  had  followed  the  first 
of  their  number  who  had  expressed  an  opinion;  whereas, 


MEDICAL    EXPERTS.  413 

when  they  were  divided,  they  might  be  expected  to 
have  paid  some  attention  to  the  subject." 

It  may  be  remarked  in  passing,  as  one  of  the  curious 
phases  of  the  error  in  question,  that  it  is  more  prevalent 
amung  the  thinking  and  cultivated  classes  than  among 
all  others  of  a  different  description.  Their  idea  is  that 
the  statements  of  the  expert  should  be  as  unquestion- 
able as  Gospel  truth  ;  that  when  once  uttered,  nothing 
can  be  added  to  it  or  taken  from  it.  To  them  dis- 
crepancy implies  incompetence,  or  something  worse,  and 
draws  out  expressions  of  contempt  and  disgust.  Even 
when  such  discrepancy  has  led  to  an  obviously  righteous 
verdict,  they  are  far  less  disposed  to  hail  the  triumph  of 
true  science  than  to  decry  the  testimony  of  experts  and 
pronounce  it  unworthy  of  confidence.  They  expect  of 
an  expert  nothing  less  than  omniscience  and  infalli- 
bility, and  this  shows  how  little  of  intelligent  thought 
has  been  given  to  this  subject.  As  if  there  were  no 
controverted  points  in  physical  science,  and  its  fol- 
lowers were  bound  to  present  an  invariable  unanimity 
of  opinion  ! 

Besides  the  natural  tendency  of  the  mind  to  diversity 
of  belief,  there  is  another  cause  of  it  to  be  found  in  the 
nature  and  objects  of  scientific  truth.  This  is  not  to  be 
regarded,  as  it  often  is,  as  something  fixed  and  invari- 
able, like  an  object  of  sense,  or  the  solution  of  a 
geometrical  problem.  In  fact,  all  science  is  progres- 
sive, and  its  condition  at  any  particular  period  repre- 
sents the  fruits  of  the  observation  and  study  of  all  who 
have  engaged  in  its  pursuit.  Every  one  contributes  to 
the  common  stock  according  to  his  ability  and  oppor- 
tunity. These  contributions  may  sometimes  convey 
discrepant  meanings,  because  the  limits  of  science  are 
beyond  reach;  and  consequently  the  inquirer  must  ever 


414  MEDICAL   EXPERTS. 

fall  short  of  a  complete  attainment.  Valuable  as  each 
one's  attainment  may  be,  it  covers  but  a  small  portion 
of  the  great  domain  of  science,  whatever  the  industry 
or  genius  by  which  it  was  accomplished.  And  though 
it  may  be  correct,  abstractly  considered,  yet  it  cannot 
be  accepted  as  a  final  result.  In  other  words,  a  matter 
of  scientific  research  must  be  regarded  from  every  pos- 
sible point  of  view,  and  under  every  variety  of  circum- 
stance, before  we  can  be  sure  of  understanding  it  very 
thoroughly.  A  person  pursuing  his  inquiries  in  the 
field  that  has  fallen  to  his  lot,  with  such  talents  and  dis- 
positions as  he  may  have  received  or  acquired,  arrives 
at  certain  conclusions.  Another,  acting  in  like  manner, 
arrives  at  conclusions  apparently  conflicting.  And  yet 
the  several  results  of  scientific  investigation,  differ  as 
they  may  from  one  another,  may  have  been  fairly 
reached  according  to  the  rules  and  processes  of  philo- 
sophical inquiry.  Some  prove  to  be  more  valuable  than 
others.  Some  will  stand  unaffected  by  the  results  of 
further  investigation.  Others  will  have  to  be  modified, 
if  not  utterly  swept  away,  by  the  subsequent  progress 
of  knowledge.  All,  however,  in  their  several  ways, 
indicate  steps  or  stages  towards  the  attainment  of  the 
final  object,  no  one  of  which  could  have  been  dispensed 
with  without  detriment. 

Without  denying  that  the  testimony  of  experts  is 
often  contradictory,  as  in  the  nature  of  things  it  some- 
times must  be,  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  such  con- 
tradiction may  be  more  apparent  than  real.  What  seems 
to  be  contradictory  may  be  found  on  a  closer  inspection 
to  be  merely  supplementary.  It  becomes  a  question,  for 
instance,  whether  certain  stains  are  made  by  blood.  On 
the  strength  of  some  approved  chemical  tests  they  are  pro- 
nounced to  be  blood,  and  the  fact  may  be  of  the  highest 


MEDICAL   EXPERTS.  415 

importance  to  the  party  concerned.  But  another  expert, 
who  has  made  extensive  microscopical  researches  on  the 
blood,  is  satisfied  that  the  stains  in  question  are  made 
by  the  blood  of  some  inferior  animal.  The  practical 
effect  of  the  latter  conclusion  is  to  destroy  the  force  of 
the  former;  but  there  is  really  no  contradiction  between 
them.  The  one  is  merely  the  complement  of  the  other, 
indicating,  not  error  nor  deception  nor  superficial  at- 
tainment, but  simply  the  progress  of  knowledge.  Again, 
skilled  testimony  may  seem  contradictory  only  because 
it  is  partial,  the  subject  matter  being  regarded  from 
different  points  of  view.  A  person's  will  is  disputed  on 
the  ground  of  mental  unsoundness.  One  expert  declares 
that  he  frequently  met  the  testator,  conversed  with  him, 
and  dealt  with  him  ;  that,  in  his  remarks  on  persons  and 
things,  he  evinced  uncommon  shrewdness,  and  that  he 
was  interested  in  the  events  of  the  clay.  He  there- 
fore concludes  that  the  testator  was  perfectly  competent 
to  make  his  will  or  transact  any  other  business.  On  the 
other  side,  it  is  testified  that  the  testator  entertained 
delusions  respecting  some  of  his  heirs,  believing  them 
to  be  hostile  to  him,  and  engaged  in  attempts  to  destroy 
his  peace  and  comfort,  if  not  his  life.  On  the  strength 
of  this  fact  he  is  declared  to  be  unsound  and  incompe- 
tent. Here,  too,  there  is  no  real  contradiction.  On  one 
side,  the  testimony  is  negative ;  on  the  other,  it  is  posi- 
tive. It  only  illustrates  the  old  story  of  the  knights  who 
read  the  inscriptions  on  the  shield  from  opposite  sides. 

It  must  be  considered  too,  in  this  connection,  as 
explanatory  of  some  of  the  discrepancies  of  experts, 
that,  in  the  practical  application  of  science,  much  must 
depend  on  the  person's  particular  experience,  and  that 
discernment  of  relations  with  which  men  are  differently 
endowed.     Persons  who  would  be  allowed  to  testify  as 


416  MEDICAL   EXPERTS. 

experts  in  a  given  case,  as  engaged  in  pursuits  having 
a  common  name,  may  have  pursued  their  inquiries  in 
paths  somewhat  remote  from  one  another,  and  conse- 
quently be  unequally  fitted  to  meet  the  question  before 
them.  A  person  is  found  dead,  for  instance,  with  wounds 
and  fractures  of  the  head,  and  a  kitchen  poker  lying 
near,  with  blood  and  hairs  on  it.  One  medical  man, 
governed  by  appearances  that  would  have  conveyed  the 
same  impression  to  most  men,  testifies  that  the  wounds 
were  made  by  the  poker.  Another,  who  has  enjoyed 
peculiar  opportunities  for  observing  wounds  made  by  the 
favorite  weapons  of  burglars  and  assassins,  thinks  the 
blows  were  inflicted  by  one  of  these.  If  he  were  right 
in  his  conclusion,  it  was  not  discreditable  to  the  other 
that  he  was  not  familiar  with  the  effects  of  slung-shots 
and  dipseys.  In  a  case  of  alleged  insanity,  one  expert, 
guided  by  the  common  light,  comes  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  person  is  not  insane.  Another,  guided  by  a 
class  of  cases  that  happened  to  fall  under  his  notice, 
though  scarcely  known  to  others,  sees  indications  of 
insanity  in  certain  acts  or  traits  that,  otherwise,  he 
would  have  regarded,  with  the  rest  of  the  world,  as 
merely  the  singularities  of  a  sane  mind.  Neither  is 
there  here  any  irreconcilable  conflict  of  opinion.  Both 
truly  and  faithfully  declare  the  results  of  actual  obser- 
vation, one  being  the  fitting  supplement  of  the  other. 
And  thus  it  must  ever  be,  for  science  is  progressive  and 
its  domain  without  limits. 

It  has  been  seriously  urged  as  an  argument  against 
skilled  testimony,  leaving  out  of  view  its  moral  and  intel- 
lectual aspects,  that  it  has  the  effect  of  confusing  and 
distracting  the  minds  of  the  jury  at  the  very  moment 
when  they  need  to  be  self-confident  and  sure.  If  this  is 
a  sufficient  reason  for  excluding  such  testimony,  it  may 


MEDICAL  EXPERTS.  417 

be  urged  with  equal  force  against  the  admission  of  ordi- 
nary testimony,  in  which  the  discrepancies  are  a  fruitful 
source  of  embarrassment  to  court  and  jury.  And  with 
a  far  stronger  force  it  may  be  urged  against  the  ad- 
dresses of  counsel,  the  very  purpose  of  which,  half  the 
time,  is  to  distract  and  puzzle  the  jury.  Yet  it  was 
considered  a  great  advance  on  the  side  of  humanity,  in 
England,  when  counsel  were  allowed  to  speak  for  the 
accused  in  criminal  trials.  It  is  not  one  of  the  privileges 
of  a  jury  to  have  the  formation  of  their  verdict  made 
easy  for  them  ;  but  it  is  very  properly  the  privilege  of 
the  accused  to  have  whatever  may  enure  to  his  benefit 
brought  to  the  knowledge  of  the  jury.  The  argument 
we  are  considering  is  little  heeded  in  the  ordinary  affairs 
of  life.  Men  are  seldom  deterred  from  resorting  to 
various  counsellors  by  the  fear  of  receiving  conflicting 
advice.  They  take  counsel  one  of  another,  in  order  to 
learn  whatever  belongs  to  the  matter  in  hand,  and  thus 
obtain  the  materials  of  a  correct  decision. 

This  objection  to  the  testimony  of  experts  comes  with 
an  ill  grace  from  lawyers,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  it  is 
regarded  as  sound  law  to  admit,  in  questions  of  mental 
condition,  the  opinions  of  ordinary  witnesses.  Such,  in- 
deed, is  the  practice  in  nearly  every  State  in  the  Union. 
When  we  express  our  surprise  that  so  absurd  a  rule 
should  ever  have  been  admitted,  the  only  reply  we  ob- 
tain is,  that  the  jury  will  judge  of  the  value  of  such 
opinions  and  allow  to  them  their  proper  weight.  That 
the  jury  will  judge  of  their  value  is  certainly  true,  but 
whether  they  will  judge  correctly  may  be  very  far  from 
true.  However  this  may  be,  we  hear  nothing  of  the 
tendency  of  such  evidence  to  confuse  and  distract  the 
minds  of  the  jury.  We  cannot  help  being  surprised 
when  we  see  opinions  confessedly  worthless  admitted 

27 


418  MEDICAL    EXPERTS. 

with  scarcely  a  murmur  of  dissent ;  while  others,  the 
fruits  of  reflection  and  experience,  are  viewed  with  dis- 
trust, and  received  under  a  tacit  protest. 

There  remains  to  be  noticed  another  complaint  against 
skilled  testimony,  —  the  one  most  current  among  men  of 
culture  and  worldly  knowledge.  Inasmuch  as  experts 
are  engaged  by  one  or  the  other  of  the  litigant  parties, 
it  is  contended  that  they  testify  under  a  bias,  and  con- 
sequently are  not  trustworthy.  They  are  employed,  it 
is  said,  much  like  counsel,  with  a  distinct  understanding 
as  to  what  they  shall  utter,  even  before  they  have  heard 
a  syllable  of  the  evidence  on  one  side  or  the  other,  and 
paid  for  the  service  like  counsel.  Impartiality,  under 
such  circumstances,  is  out  of  the  question.  The  expert, 
though  bound  by  his  oath  to  tell  the  whole  truth,  tells 
only  so  much  of  it  as  will  help  his  employers.  His 
position,  therefore,  embarrasses  the  jury,  who  cannot 
safely  accept  or  reject  his  testimony.  In  reply,  let  me 
say  that  this  objection  depends  for  much  if  not  all  its 
weight,  on  some  misstatement  of  facts,  a  little  false  col- 
oring, and  a  complete  ignoring  of  the  exact  purpose  of 
skilled  testimony  in  a  judicial  proceeding.  It  is  only 
a  scandal,  not  a  matter  of  fact,  that  experts  are  employed 
like  counsel,  for  hire,  without  regard  to  the  merits  of  the 
case.  If  such  bargains  have  ever  been  made,  I  do  not 
hesitate  to  pronounce  them  rare  exceptions  to  the  usual 
course,  and  regarded  by  the  great  body  of  scientific  men 
as  base  and  dishonorable.  Because  a  man's  opinions  are 
worth  money,  it  does  not  follow  that  they  are  corruptly 
bought.  Nor  is  it  very  obvious  how  a  fair  compensation 
for  this,  more  than  for  any  other  service,  should  obscure 
his  perceptions  of  truth.  That  experts  testify  in  the 
interest  of  a  party  is  very  true,  but  their  testimony  may 
be  none  the  less  reliable  on  that  account.     That  it  is 


MEDICAL    EXPERTS.  419 

sure  to  favor  the  party  that  calls  them  rather  than  the 
other,  could  not  well  be  otherwise.     It  is  an  incident  of 
our  judicial  system,  which  leaves  to  the  parties  them- 
selves the  duty  of  maintaining  their  own  cause,  and  it 
does  not  necessarily  imply  any  unworthy  bias.    This  will 
be  manifest  when  we  consider  the  manner  in  which  the 
expert  is  engaged.    The  evidence  to  be  produced  is  laid 
before  him,  so  far  as  it  can  be  ascertained,  and  he  is 
requested  to  give  his  opinion  respecting  it.     After  due 
consideration,  he  may  say,  "  If  you  can  prove  the  facts 
as  here  stated,  and  if  their  force  cannot  be  weakened  by 
evidence  not  here  anticipated,  you  have  a  good  cause, 
and  I  am  willing  to  testify  to  that  effect,"     Or,  as  fre- 
quently happens,  he  is  obliged  to  say  that,  "  supposing 
these  facts  proved,  they  would  not  warrant  the   con- 
struction you  wish  to  put  upon  them,  and  my  evidence 
would  not  help  you."     Whatever   conclusion   he    may 
reach  on  this  preliminary  examination,  the  party  is  duly 
warned  that  the  evidence,  as  brought  out  on  the  trial,  — 
for  it  can  seldom  be  exactly  anticipated,  —  may  oblige 
him  to  modify  or  abandon  it  altogether,  and  it  is  for  them 
to  decide  whether  they  will  take  the  chance.    That  this 
result  actually  happens  occasionally,  is  a  fact  within  the 
knowledge,  I  apprehend,   of  all  who  have  been  much 
consulted  for  this  purpose.     Thus  it  is  that  if  the  tes- 
timony of  the  expert  is  wholly  and  unconditionally  in 
favor  of  one  side  only,  it  is  simply  because  this  result 
is  warranted  by  the  facts.     Otherwise,  he   would  not 
have  been  placed  on  the  witness-stand  at  all.     The  idea 
that  his  receiving  compensation  from  one  of  the  parties 
is  calculated  to  warp  his  judgment  and  make  him  see 
things  differently  from  what  he  otherwise  would,  might 
have   some  foundation,  were  the  circumstances  under 
which  he  is  engaged  not  precisely  as  I  have  represented. 


420  MEDICAL    EXPERTS. 

The  opinion  sought  for  happens  to  be  favorable,  honestly 
and  conscientiously  so ;  it  is  uttered  on  the  witness- 
stand,  and  compensation  follows.  The  objection  has  no 
weight  except  on  the  supposition  that  this  order  of 
things  is  reversed,  —  that  the  opinion  follows  the  com- 
pensation. That  this  may  possibly  occur,  is  not  denied. 
I  am  speaking  of  the  general  rule. 

Under  the  fancied  weight  of  the  objections  I  have 
been  considering,  it  has  been  proposed  to  place  some 
restrictions  on  the  admission  of  skilled  testimony,  where- 
by the  freedom  at  present  allowed  would  be  consider- 
ably curtailed.  Before  examining  the  various  methods 
proposed  for  this  purpose,  let  us  inquire  into  the  practi- 
cability of  any  change  under  existing  circumstances. 

The  accepted  theory  of  our  criminal  law  supposes  that 
the  accused  is  entitled  to  whatever,  under  the  rules  of 
evidence,  can  be  truthfully  alleged  in  his  favor.  He  is 
not  only  entitled  to  any  facts  that  bear  upon  hrs  case, 
but  also  to  any  construction  of  those  facts  which  a  com- 
petent judgment  can  supply.  Though  twenty  or  a  hun- 
dred experts  pronounce  him  to  be  sane,  he  has  the  right 
to  put  in  evidence  the  opinion  of  the  one  solitary  expert 
who  believes  him  to  be  insane.  He  could  not  be  said  to 
have  had  a  fair  trial  if  such  opinion  had  been  shut  out. 
In  allowing  the  parties  to  a  suit  to  furnish  the  evidence, 
each  for  itself,  with  no  restriction  on  the  privilege,  with 
some  trifling  exceptions,  we  have  been  accustomed  to 
think  that  we  have  taken  the  highest  attainable  step 
towards  perfection  in  our  administration  of  justice.  It 
is  not  easy  to  see  how  any  exception  to  the  general  prin- 
ciple can  be  furnished  by  the  evidence  of  experts.  On 
the  contrary,  wherever  there  can  be  any  ground  for 
diversity  of  opinion,  as  there  generally  is  in  matters  of 
science,  it  is  simply  a  requirement  of  justice  that  such 


MEDICAL    EXPERTS.  421 

diversity  should  be  fully  and  fairly  expressed.  Then 
the  jury  proceed  to  their  deliberations,  satisfied  that 
everything  has  been  said  that  could  be  said,  for  and 
against,  and  that  nothing  has  been  kept  out  which  either 
party  thought  conducive  to  success. 

Of  course,  I  am  aware  that  advantage  is  sometimes 
taken  of  this  beneficent  rule  to  foist  opinions  on  the  jury 
that  are  utterly  unworthy  of  their  confidence.  It  is  an 
infirmity  of  many  men  to  suppose  that  the  possession  of 
a  little  actual  knowledge  warrants  them  in  claiming  a 
great  deal  which  they  never  did  possess.  Under  the 
influence  of  this  infirmity,  they  rush  to  the  witness-stand 
to  assume  a  duty  for  which  they  are  entirely  incompe- 
tent. In  the  character  of  experts,  however,  their  opin- 
ions may  have  the  same  weight  with  the  jury  as  those 
of  better  men.  It  cannot  be  disguised  that  this  is  one 
of  the  crying  evils  of  our  time,  and  is  sufficient  to 
account  for  much  of  the  current  prejudice  against  ex- 
perts. Juries  cannot  decide  between  adverse  opinions, 
even  when  sincerely  desirous  of  relying  on  the  best 
rather  than  that  which  confirms  their  own  foregone  con- 
clusions. The  most  discouraging  aspect  of  the  evil  is 
that,  with  juries  constituted  as  they  now  are,  reflecting 
as  they  do  a  public  opinion  satisfied  with  the  feeblest 
excuses  for  human  delinquency,  and  ever  ready  to  favor 
the  weak  when  opposed  to  the  strong,  it  seems  to  be 
beyond  the  reach  of  correction.  Still,  while  fully  admit- 
ting this  fact,  we  would  regard  it  only  as  an  unavoidable 
offset  against  the  greater  good  of  our  present  mode  of 
procedure. 

Believing,  therefore,  that  the  current  objections  to 
skilled  testimony  are  of  far  less  weight  than  is  usually 
attributed  to  them,  and  that,  greater  or  less,  the  evil 
complained  of  is  incident  to  a  system  which,  on  the 


422  MEDICAL   EXPERTS. 

whole,  is  best  calculated  to  promote  the  ends  of  justice, 
and  is  in  harmony  with  our  social  and  political  insti- 
tutions, I  am  unable  to  see  any  imperative  reasons  for 
much  change.  And  this  conclusion  is  only  strengthened 
by  an  examination  of  the  various  methods  that  have 
been  suggested  for  rendering  skilled  testimony  more 
satisfactory.- 

In  order  to  provide  the  community  with  a  class  of 
experts  both  competent  and  impartial,  it  has  been  pro- 
posed to  have  them  appointed  by  the  Executive  of  the 
State,  no  others  being  allowed  to  give  opinions  in  evi- 
dence. It  is  understood,  of  course,  that  the  duty  would 
be  assigned  to  men  of  distinguished  attainments  in  their 
respective  callings,  and  of  a  character  that  would  raise 
them  beyond  the  reach  of  improper  influences.  This, 
certainly,  is  a  consummation  devoutly  to  be  wished; 
but,  in  view  of  the  experience  the  country  has  had  of 
Executive  appointments,  I  doubt  if  it  could  be  reason- 
ably expected  before  some  distant  millennial  period.  But, 
even  were  it  otherwise,  there  are  practical  difficulties  in 
the  way,  I  apprehend,  sufficient  to  prevent  the  success 
of  this  method.  Men  whose  standing  and  character 
would  render  them  fit  subjects  for  such  an  appointment 
would,  for  the  most  part,  be  debarred  by  the  pressure  of 
private  duties  from  accepting  it.  On  the  supposition 
that  the  emoluments  of  the  office  would  be  worthy  of 
its  dignity  and  importance,  we  know  very  well  that  the 
appointment  would  be  sought  by  men  with  small  qualifi- 
cations for  the  work ;  and  we  know,  too,  that  by  means 
of  the  customary  appliances  for  obtaining  office  many 
of  them  would  succeed.  Besides,  we  have  no  guaranty 
that  the  Executive,  even  though  not  pestered  by  office- 
seekers,  would  make  the  wisest  possible  selections.  How 
is  he — a  mechanic,  or  trader,  or  lawyer,  or  politician  —  to 


MEDICAL    EXPERTS.  423 

be  able  to  distinguish  between  the  claims  of  true  science 
and  empty  pretension?  In  times  like  these,  when  the 
medical  profession  is  invaded  by  people  whose  only 
claim  to  public  confidence  consists  of  some  popular  form 
of  charlatanism,  with  or  without  the  sanction  of  a  col- 
lege, and  who  are  upheld  by  many  of  those  who  repre- 
sent the  fashion  and  culture  of  the  social  world,  we 
might  expect  appointments  to  the  office  not  remarkably 
calculated  to  flatter  our  professional  pride,  or  increase 
our  regard  for  medical  experts.  Thus,  the  only  advan- 
tage which  this  method  can  pretend  to  claim,  that  of 
providing  a  better  class  of  experts,  would  not  be  effect- 
ually secured. 

There  is  another  practical  difficulty,  which  of  itself 
would  be  fatal  to  the  project.  Such  is  now  the  division 
of  labor  in  the  various  pursuits  of  art  and  science,  that, 
in  determining  precisely  the  range  of  the  expert's  prac- 
tice, it  would  be  difficult  to  avoid  making  it  either  too 
broad  or  too  narrow.  A  person  appointed  as  an  expert 
in  surgery  might  be  expected  to  testify  in  cases  involv- 
ing operations  on  the  eye,  or  the  ear,  or  the  foot,  and 
yet,  even  with  a  high  surgical  reputation,  be  less  com- 
petent than  many  others  who  had  made  a  specialty  of 
diseases  of  those  parts.  Many  an  eminent  physician, 
whom  no  Executive  would  hesitate  to  license  as  an 
expert  in  diseases  generally,  might  know  comparatively 
little  of  insanity.  It  is  getting  to  be  distinctly  under- 
stood that  one  who  gives  his  time  and  attention  entirely 
to  a  particular  pursuit  is  to  be  recognized  as  an  expert 
in  questions  pertaining  to  that  pursuit,  to  the  exclusion  of 
those  who  have  attended  to  it  incidentally,  as  a  subordi- 
nate part  of  a  more  general  department  of  inquiry.  Nor 
is  it  easy  to  see  how,  under  the  most  favorable  condi- 
tions, the  evils  now  complained  of  would  be  abated  by 


424  MEDICAL    EXPERTS. 

this  method.  We  should  have  as  much  diversity  of 
opinion,  for  the  simple  reason  that  such  diversity  is  as 
likely  to  spring  from  excess  as  from  deficiency  of  knowl- 
edge. In  every  trial  where  expert  testimony  is  given, 
we  see  men  of  distinguished  name  on  one  side  as  well 
as  the  other. 

It  has  also  been  suggested,  as  an  improvement  on  the 
present  practice,  that  experts  should  be  assigned  by 
the  court,  in  each  particular  suit,  who,  alone,  should  be 
allowed  to  express  opinions  in  evidence.  Beyond  the 
chance  of  securing  a  higher  degree  of  honesty  and  com- 
petence, I  see  nothing  in  favor  of  this  course.  Even  if 
practicable,  it  is  open  to  the  objection  that  it  limits  the 
sources  of  information  in  a  manner  repugnant  to  the 
spirit  of  our  judicial  system.  Nobody  pretends  that  all 
knowledge,  even  in  the  narrowest  specialty,  is  confined 
to  one,  two,  or  three  individuals ;  and  whatever  ability 
they  might  exhibit,  one  or  the  other  party  would  be 
likely  to  imagine  that  some  important  point  could  be 
established,  if  they  had  an  unrestricted  choice  of  ex- 
perts. 

It  is  not  very  obvious  how  this  course  could  be  fol- 
lowed under  our  present  mode  of  procedure.  Not  being 
called  by  either  party,  their  evidence  could  not  be 
elicited  like  that  of  other  witnesses,  by  examination  in 
chief  and  cross  examination.  It  would  have  to  be  given 
to  the  court  or  jury  in  the  shape  of  a  report,  that  might 
or  might  not  be  received  with  the  binding  force  of  evi- 
dence. Nor  is  it  easy  to  see  how  the  matter  of  compen- 
sation could  be  adjusted  with  a  proper  regard  to  the 
means  of  the  different  parties.  The  most  obvious  way 
of  disposing  of  it  would  be  to  include  it  in  the  costs  of 
court,  but  this  would  render  the  expense  no  less  onerous 
to  a  party  of  narrow  means.     Whether  large  or  small,  it 


MEDICAL    EXPERTS.  425 

would  imply  a  bargain  between  the  court  and  the  expert 
rather  shocking  to  our  ideas  of  judicial  dignity.  It 
might,  perhaps,  be  fixed  by  law ;  but  in  all  probability 
it  would  be  placed  too  low  to  induce  any  persons  of 
eminent  skill  to  undertake  the  duty,  which  might  occupy 
days  and  weeks  together,  with  the  abandonment  of  all 
other  employment. 

This  method  has  probably  been  suggested  by  the 
practice  of  some  foreign  countries,  France  and  Ger- 
many, where  the  law  requires  the  judge  to  appoint  the 
experts  when  needed,  who  inform  themselves  of  the 
facts  in  the  case  previous  to  the  trial,  and  report  their 
opinion  to  the  court  in  writing ;  this  report  being  used 
like  other  documentary  evidence.  But  it  must  be  borne 
in  mind  that  in  Germany,  for  the  most  part,  there  is  no 
trial  by  jury ;  and  that  in  France  a  criminal  case  passes 
through  its  most  decisive  stages  before  it  is  submitted 
to  a  jury.  The  report  of  the  experts  is  examined  by  the 
jury  as  a  part  of  the  documentary  evidence,  and  their 
estimate  of  it  is  determined  by  that  of  the  judge.  When 
we  shall  have  abolished  the  trial  by  jury,  or  made  the 
jury  the  mere  mouthpiece  of  the  judge,  we  may  be  ready 
to  have  the  experts  appointed  by  the  court,  —  and  prob- 
ably not  till  then. 

On  a  comparison  of  the  two  systems,  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted that,  in  one  of  its  phases  at  least,  that  of  France 
and  Germany  has  a  decided  advantage  over  ours.  There, 
in  criminal  cases,  the  government  provides  the  experts 
for  the  sole  purpose  of  obtaining  the  truth,  whether  for 
or  against  the  accused.  They  are  hampered  by  none  of 
the  incidents  of  personal  feeling  or  a  rigid  technicality, 
and  their  investigation  is  made  with  all  the  deliberation 
and  thoroughness  of  a  scientific  inquiry.  If  the  accused 
fail  to  obtain  exact  justice,  it  is  not  for  lack  of  skilled 


426  MEDICAL  EXPERTS. 

testimony.  Here,  it  is  left  to  the  accused  to  employ 
such  experts  as  he  deems  necessary  to  prove  his  inno- 
cence. If  poor  and  friendless,  he  is  quite  unable  to 
profit  by  this  privilege  ;  for  in  all  the  States,  with  a  few 
exceptions,  the  aid  furnished  by  the  government  scarcely 
remedies  the  defect,  and  thus  he  may  be  convicted,  when, 
with  the  help  of  an  ample  fortune,  he  would  have  been 
acquitted. 

Other  methods  of  obtaining  skilled  testimony  so  as  to 
obviate  the  defects  of  the  present  have  been  proposed  ; 
but,  being  manifestly  impracticable  under  our  modes  of 
procedure,  it  would  be  hardly  worth  our  while  to  con- 
sider them  here.  It  is  idle  to  expect  our  people  to  adopt 
any  method  which  implies  a  change  in  the  essential  feat- 
ures of  a  jury  trial. 

Can  nothing  be  done,  then,  to  diminish  the  occasions 
of  complaint,  now  so  freely  made  against  the  testimony 
of  experts?  Not  much  certainly,  because,  as  we  have 
seen,  much  of  the  complaint  is  not  well  founded;  but 
unquestionably  the  defects  of  the  present  practice  might 
be  corrected  in  some  degree,  at  least,  without  changing 
a  single  essential  *feature  of  the  existing  system. 

In  some  States,  when  the  friends  of  a  convicted  felon 
apply  to  the  Executive  for  his  pardon,  on  the  score  of 
insanity,  it  is  customary  for  this  functionary  to  appoint 
experts  to  examine  the  person,  and  report  their  conclu- 
sions respecting  his  mental  condition.  Skilled  testi- 
mony on  any  subject,  thus  obtained,  is  free  from  the 
objections  made  against  it  as  it  is  usually  obtained.  It 
is  not  given  in  the  interest  of  one  party  or  the  other; 
it  is  unbiassed  by  any  pecuniary  arrangements,  and  it 
escapes  the  damage  of  a  cross-examination.  It  is  the 
well  matured  conclusions  of  a  calm,  deliberate,  thorough 
investigation.    I  propose,  therefore,  to  make  it  obligatory 


MEDICAL    EXPERTS.  427 

on  the  Executive  to  appoint  such  a  commission  when 
applied  for  under  the  circumstances  above  mentioned. 
Of  course,  the  provision  would  be  applicable  only  to 
those  cases  in  which  the  alleged  mental  disorder  is  still 
existing. 

A  similar  purpose  is  still  better  served  in  the  State  of 
Maine.  There  it  was  enacted  by  the  Legislature,  a  few 
years  ago,  that,  whenever  insanity  was  to  be  the  defence 
in  a  criminal  case,  due  notice  thereof  should  be  given 
to  the  court,  by  which  the  prisoner  should  be  sent  to  the 
State  hospital  for  the  insane,  that  he  might  be  observed  by 
the  superintendent,  who,  when  satisfied  thereon,  should 
report  to  the  court  respecting  his  mental  condition. 
During  the  twenty-one  years  that  the  law  has  been  in 
operation,  as  I  am  informed  by  Dr.  Harlow,  the  super- 
intendent, thirty  persons  have  been  admitted  under  its 
provisions,  of  whom  twenty-four  were  found  to  be  in- 
sane, and  the  rest  not  insane.  Of  the  former,  fourteen 
were  tried,  acquitted  on  the  ground  of  insanity,  and 
some  of  them  sent  back  to  the  hospital.  Ten,  having  so 
far  improved  as  to  be  considered  safe  to  be  at  large, 
were  discharged  and  taken  care  of  by  their  friends ;  the 
Government,  for  some  good  reason,  declining  to  bring 
them  to  trial. 

Our  present  mode  of  examining  experts  is  not  by  any 
means  the  best  calculated  to  elicit  a  well  considered 
opinion.  Within  a  fewT  years  a  change  has  been  intro- 
duced, which  is  not  a  step  in  the  right  direction.  The 
practice  used  to  be  for  the  expert  to  hear  all  the  evidence 
given  at  the  trial;  and  then  he  was  asked  for  his  opinion 
founded  on  that  evidence,  supposing  it  to  be  true.  At 
last  the  idea  was  started  that  in  this  way  the  expert 
was  assuming  the  functions  of  the  jury,  to  which  be- 
longs the  duty  of  passing  on  the  credibility  of  the  wit- 


428  MEDICAL   EXPERTS. 

nesses ;  and  the  practice  now  is,  in  most  of  the  States, 
to  put  to  the  expert  a  hypothetical  case,  and  ask  his 
opinion  on  that.  Of  course,  the  counsel  on  each  side, 
out  of  the  facts  that  have  appeared  in  evidence,  con- 
struct a  hypothetical  case  as  fairly  as  will  best  serve 
their  purpose,  and  no  more  so.  By  this  means  the  ex- 
pert may  be  obliged  to  assent  to  the  propositions  of  both 
sides,  and  thus  apparently  nullify  his  own  well  matured 
convictions.  And  this  may  be  accomplished,  not  by  any 
addition  to  or  even  suppression  of  facts,  but  solely  by 
such  a  twisting  and  coloring  as  is  quite  easy  to  the 
unfailing  ingenuity  of  counsel.  Besides,  it  is  difficult 
to  see  how  the  objection  in  question  is  obviated  by  this 
course.  Though  you  may  not  ask  the  expert's  opinion 
on  the  evidence  he  has  heard,  supposing  it  true,  you 
may  recite  every  word  of  that  evidence,  not  as  some- 
thing actually  uttered,  but  as  something  that  might  have 
been  uttered,  and  ask  his  opinion  about  that.  The  rule 
reminds  one  of  those  fictions  of  the  law  which  were  once 
supposed  to  promote  the  ends  of  justice  better  than  the 
literal  truth. 

It  should  be  considered  that  much  of  the  unmerited 
distrust  of  experts'  testimony  springs  from  the  manner 
in  which  it  is  elicited.  Here  the  spirit  and  practice  of  the 
law  are  strikingly  conflicting.  While  the  former  accords 
to  the  parties  the  benefit  of  the  ripest  and  richest  attain- 
ments of  science  and  art,  the  latter  provides  a  way  for 
overwhelming  them  with  utter  discredit.  If  there  is  any- 
thing that  should  be  carefully  pondered,  with  every 
difficulty  and  objection  anticipated,  it  is  the  testimony  of 
an  expert  in  court.  And  yet  he  takes  the  stand,  ignorant, 
for  the  most  part,  of  the  particular  points  on  which  he 
will  be  cross-examined,  and  surprised  by  questions  he 
did  not  anticipate.      Cross-examination,  though  an  ad- 


MEDICAL    EXPERTS.  429 

mirable  means  for  detecting  falsehood  and  helping  the 
memory,  is  sometimes  nsed  to  obscure  and  pervert  the 
truth,  and  throw  suspicion  and  distrust  on  the  most 
honest  attempt  to  tell  it.  The  object  of  counsel  h\  ex- 
amining witnesses  is  not  to  elicit  the  whole  truth,  but 
only  so  much  of  it  as  will  best  serve  their  purpose. 
Whatever  does  come  out  adverse  to  this  end  is  to  be 
discredited  by  every  allowable  means,  and  they  are 
neither  few  nor  small.  Men  who  have  spent  a  lifetime 
practising  the  arts  of  cross-examination  seldom  fail  to 
damage  the  testimony  of  an  expert,  however  cautious 
and  clear  headed  he  may  be.  In  this  manner  the  grav- 
est truth  may  be  arrayed  in  the  colors  of  error,  and  the 
profoundest  wisdom  invested  with  the  garb  of  folly.  It  is 
hard  for  the  expert  to  maintain  his  self-possession  while 
ingenious  counsel  are  endeavoring  by  every  kind  of  pro- 
fessional art  to  destroy  the  legitimate  effect  of  his  testi- 
mony. The  result  is,  that  many  an  honest  and  truthful 
expression  of  opinion  is  deprived  of  its  proper  weight 
with  the  jury,  and  to  that  extent  the  ends  of  justice  are 
defeated.  To  some  degree,  no  doubt,  this  is  unavoidable 
in  the  nature  of  the  case ;  but  it  cannot  be  denied  that 
counsel  often  assume  a  license  that  forms  no  necessary 
part  of  a  jury  trial.  If  the  judge  would  use  his  rightful 
authority  to  keep  the  cross-examination  within  its  proper 
limits,'  insisting  upon  that  kind  of  courtesy  which  marks 
the  intercourse  of  gentlemen  on  all  other  occasions,  there 
would  be  far  less  reason  for  distrusting  and  sneering  at 
the  testimony  of  experts. 

This  evil  would  be  entirely  avoided  if  the  testimony 
of  experts  could  be  given  in  writing  and  read  to  the 
jury  without  any  oral  examination.  It  would  thus  be 
deliberately  prepared,  its  explanations  well  considered, 
and  its  full  force  and  bearings  clearly  discerned.     It 


430  MEDICAL   EXPERTS. 

would  go  to  the  jury  on  its  own  merits,  no  advantage 
being  gained  by  either  party  by  the  superior  adroitness 
of  counsel  in  embarrassing  the  witness,  and  pushing  his 
statements  to  a  false  or  ridiculous  conclusion.  It  is  not 
for  me  to  pronounce  an  opinion  on  the  practicability  of 
such  a  change ;  but  there  certainly  does  not  seem,  at 
first  sight,  to  be  any  insuperable  obstacle  in  the  way. 
It  would  work  no  injustice  to  either  party,  and  it  could 
be  managed  without  additional  inconvenience.  There 
certainly  can  be  no  difficulty  in  civil  cases,  where  both 
parties  consent  to  the  arrangement.  In  a  famous  will- 
case  heard  a  few  years  ago  in  the  Surrogate's  Court  of 
New  York  City,  the  judge  preferred  to  have  the  opinions 
of  the  experts  submitted  to  him  in  writing,  with  the 
understanding  that,  although  they  could  not  be  received 
as  evidence,  they  would  be  carefully  read,  and  allowed 
all  the  weight  their  intrinsic  merits  deserved.  The 
arrangement  was  approved  by  both  parties,  and  I  am  not 
aware  that  the  result  was  unsatisfactory  to  either. 

In  another  particular  there  might  be  a  change  for 
the  better,  involving  no  alteration  in  the  letter  or 
spirit  of  the  law.  Of  late  years,  courts  have  often 
evinced  a  disposition  to  depreciate  the  testimony  of  ex- 
perts, and  the  thoughtless  cry  against  it  has  found  an 
echo  in  their  willing  utterances.  If,  instead  of  sneer- 
ing at  such  testimony,  they  would  exert  their  rightful 
power  to  render  it  worthy  of  respect  and  confidence  by 
gladly  availing  themselves  of  its  help,  and  discriminating 
between  the  claims  of  true  science  and  the  pretensions 
of  mere  charlatanism,  much  less  would  be  heard,  I  im- 
agine, of  the  popular  complaints  on  the  subject. 

But  no  possible  change  in  our  methods  of  eliciting 
expert  testimony,  nor  even  that  improvement  which  is 
implied  in  more  exact  and  comprehensive  attainment, 


MEDICAL    EXPERTS.  431 

will  ever  place  it  beyond  complaint,  so  long  as  the 
courts  themselves,  in  utter  disregard  of  their  proper 
functions,  assume  the  part  of  the  expert.  This  is  a 
spectacle  that  has  become  so  common  of  late  years  as 
to  excite  little  or  no  surprise.  In  cases  of  disputed 
sanity,  have  we  not  seen  the  judge  calling  the  party  to 
his  side,  and,  after  a  few  minutes'  conversation,  pro- 
nouncing him  sane  and  safe  to  be  at  large,  in  spite  of 
the  declarations  to  the  contrary  of  men  long  conversant 
with  the  discourse,  conduct,  ways,  and  manners  of  the 
insane  ?  Have  we  not  heard  a  judge  declaring  his  will- 
ingness to  discharge  from  our  hospitals  every  patient 
not  clearly  dangerous,  and  then  setting  up  his  own 
peculiar  tests  of  danger  ?  In  a  recent  case  that  came 
under  my  notice,  of  application  to  a  judge  to  order  the 
commitment  of  a  woman  to  a  hospital  for  the  insane, 
supported  by  an  abundance  of  testimony  that  she  had 
been  insane  for  several  years,  during  which  she  had 
been  constantly  uttering  the  most  revolting  delusions 
respecting  those  who  were  nearest  and  once  had  been 
dearest  to  her,  openly  charging  her  husband  and  daugh- 
ter with  practices  not  fit  even  to  be  named,  worrying 
them  by  the  most  painful  forms  of  annoyance,  and  ban- 
ishing all  peace  and  comfort  from  their  lives  ;  roaming 
from  one  boarding-house  to  another  as  often  as  her  pres- 
ence became  intolerable,  breaking  away  from  the  most 
careful  and  considerate  arrangements  made  for  her  sup- 
port, and  finally  driving  her  family  from  their  home  by 
her  unceasing  persecutions,  —  in  that  case  did  we  not 
hear  the  judge,  while  admitting  that  she  was  clearly 
insane,  decide  that  she  was  not  a  suitable  subject  for  a 
hospital  ? 

It  is  not  a  sufficient  defence  of  such  judicial  perform- 
ances to  say  that  the  judge,  acting  without  a  jury,  as  in 


432  MEDICAL    EXPERTS. 

the  cases  alluded  to,  must  decide  points  of  fact  as  well 
as  of  law;  because  neither  judge  nor  jury  can  rightfully 
decide  on  a  question  of  fact  contrary  to  the  evidence, 
even  of  experts.  The  judge  who  assumes  the  functions 
of  an  expert  wanders  from  his  own  proper  sphere,  while 
he  belittles  and  degrades  the  office  of  the  true  expert. 

The  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter  is,  that  it  is  with 
this  as  with  many  other  imperfect  institutions.  We  must 
look  for  improvement,  not  so  much  to  any  devices  of 
legislation,  as  to  broader  views  and  a  firmer  spirit  on 
the  part  of  those  who  administer  the  laws,  to  a  higher 
sense  of  professional  honor,  both  in  the  lawyer  and  the 
physician,  and  to  a  healthier  public  sentiment. 


INSANITY  OF  KING   GEORGE   THE   THIRD. 


[If  insanity  in  a  private  individual  occupying  a  high  social  position, 
and  engaged  in  important  affairs,  is  always  embarrassing  and  often 
disastrous,  one  may  faintly  conceive  of  the  extent  of  such  a  result 
when  it  occurs  in  the  sovereign  of  an  empire.  The  purpose  of  the 
following  pages  was  not  to  minister  to  a  vulgar  curiosity  by  an  ex- 
posure of  mental  infirmities  that  reduce  the  most  favored  mortal 
to  the  level  of  the  lowest,  but  rather  to  present,  as  a  matter  of  in- 
struction, a  manifestation  of  the  disease  under  circumstances  of  ex- 
traordinary interest  and  importance.  Every  good  citizen  may  well 
ponder  upon  such  a  complete  and  sudden  dislocation  of  all  the  normal 
relations  existing  between  the  executive  and  the  other  branches  of 
the  government.  No  attempt  to  prevent  it  or  provide  for  it  by  legis- 
lation can  ever  obviate  entirely  the  difficulties  necessarily  connected 
with  such  a  contingency.  As  a  matter  of  history,  however,  of  the 
cases  of  insanity  in  the  sovereign  that  have  occurred  during  the  last 
hundred  years,  not  one,  with  a  single  exception,  perhaps,  —  that  of 
Peter  of  Russia,  —  has  given  rise  to  a  political  crisis  or  blocked  the 
wheels  of  government.  Still,  it  is  obvious  that  such  an  event  has 
been  avoided,  rather  in  consequence  of  some  happy  concurrence  of 
circumstances  than  by  any  prospective  provisions  of  law.  A  daring 
departure  from  prescriptive  forms  and  usages,  a  bold  assumption  of 
authority,  may  have  been  required,  while  the  customary  functions  of 
the  government  were  scarcely  disturbed.  Yet  this  experience  fur- 
nishes no  security  for  the  future.  It  does  not  enable  us  to  contem- 
plate the  possible  occurrence  of  the  calamity  in  question,  with  any 
more  complacency.  It  is  easy  to  conceive  that,  in  a  republican  form 
of  government  like  ours,  the  difficulties  accompanying  it  would  be 

28 


434         INSANITY   OF   KING    GEORGE   THE   THIRD. 

far  less  manageable  than  in  one  where  those  immediately  around  the 
patient  are  bound  to  him  by  ties  of  loyalty  and  long  association. 
When,  exactly,  to  interfere,  how  the  interference  should  be  made, 
when  it  should  cease,  —  these  are  questions  which,  we  cannot  doubt, 
would  fearfully  try  the  conservative  powers  of  our  system.  If  it  be 
true  that  history  is  philosophy  teaching  by  examples,  we  may  reason- 
ably believe  that,  in  such  an  event,  some  salutary  lessons  might  be 
derived  from  the  case  of  George  the  Third. 

Like  everything  connected  with  state  affairs,  the  incidents  of  King 
George's  attacks  are  involved  in  considerable  obscurity.  Some  of 
them,  as  related,  are  obviously  fabulous ;  and,  together  with  others 
less  improbable,  had  their  origin,  undoubtedly,  in  the  gossip  which 
would  naturally  spring  from  such  an  interesting  event  as  the  insan- 
ity of  the  Sovereign.  In  this  paper,  care  has  been  taken  to  in- 
dicate the  source  of  its  materials,  and  to  make  use  of  none  that  could 
,not  be  well  authenticated.] 

To  the  mere  pathologist,  the  insanity  of  a  prince  is 
not  more  interesting  than  that  of  a  peasant ;  but  to  the 
historian,  to  the  medical  jurist,  to  all  who  are  engaged 
in  the  care  of  the  insane,  the  attacks  of  George  the 
Third  are  invested  with  peculiar  interest.  He  was  a 
prominent  figure  in  a  period  that  teemed  with  great 
'men  and  great  events,  whose  memorials  are  yet  around 
us ;  and  twice  the  recurrence  of  his  disorder  gave 
rise  to  a  degree  of  political  feeling  that  has  seldom 
been  equalled,  and  to  political  discussions  that  settled 
for  ever  a  vital  principle  in  the  British  constitution. 

George  the  Third  had  a  moderate  intellectual  capac- 
ity, but  an  obstinate  will.  Of  abstract  speculation  he 
was  totally  incapable,  and  philosophical  views  of  any 
kind  were  beyond  his  reach.  His  theory  of  govern- 
ment began  and  ended  in  a  firm  maintenance  of  the 
royal  prerogative,  and  the  whole  duty  and  privilege 
of  the  subject  were  comprised  in  the  single  precept, 
"  Fear  God  and  honor  the  King."  As  a  result,  partly 
of  defective  training  and  partly  of  original  inaptitude, 


INSANITY   OF   KING   GEORGE   THE   THIRD.         435 

he  disrelished  intellectual  pursuits,  but  was  fond  of 
mixing  himself  up  with  the  administration  of  affairs, 
even  in  the  smallest  particulars.  Here  he  showed  no 
lack  of  industry  nor  of  energy.  He  was  a  stranger  to 
sensual  passion,  and  in  the  common  observances  of  life 
was  a  model  of  propriety.  He  never  forgot  what  he 
deemed  an  injury,  and  they  who  thwarted  his  wishes 
or  opposed  his  measures  were  regarded  as  factious  or 
dishonest.  Always  looking  upon  his  eldest  son  as  a 
rival  near  the  throne,  "  he  hated  him,'7  says  Brougham, 
"  with  a  hatred  scarcely  consistent  with  the  supposition 
of  a  sound  mind."  He  was  fond  of  music,  and  occa- 
sionally went  to  the  theatre  ;  but,  with  these  exceptions, 
he  sought  for  recreation  solely  in  riding  and  walking,  in 
looking  after  his  farm,  and  in  an  easy  intercourse  with 
his  family  and  dependants.  Few  men  would  have  seemed 
less  likely  to  be  visited  by  insanity.  His  general  health 
had  been  always  good ;  his  powers  were  impaired  by 
none  of  those  indulgences  almost  inseparable  from  the 
kingly  station ;  he  was  remarkably  abstemious  at  the 
table;  and  took  much  exercise  in  the  open  air.  Insanity 
had  never  appeared  in  his  family,  and  he  was  quite  free 
from  those  eccentricities  and  peculiarities  which  indi- 
cate an  ill-balanced  mind. 

Five  times  was  George  the  Third  struck  down  by 
mental  disease.  The  first  was  in  the  spring  of  1765, 
when  he  was  twenty-seven  years  old ; 1  the  second  in 
1788,  the  third  in  1801,  the  fourth  in  1804,  and  the 
fifth  in  1810.  Excepting  the  last,  from  which  he  never 
recovered,  the  attacks  were  of  comparatively  short 
duration,  none  of  them  continuing  very  obviously  be- 
yond six  months. 

1  Adolphus,  History  of  England,  i.  175. 


436         INSANITY   OF   KING   GEORGE    THE   THIRD. 

The  particulars  of  the  first  attack  were  studiously 
concealed  by  his  family,  and  its  true  character  was  not 
generally  known  at  the  time.  There  seems  to  be  no 
doubt,  however,  that  its  symptoms  were  similar  to  those 
of  the  subsequent  attacks.  Shortly  before,  an  eruption  on 
the  face,  which  had  troubled  him  for  some  years,  had  so 
entirely  disappeared  that  it  was  supposed  he  had  applied 
external  remedies  to  repel  it.  This  was  followed  by 
considerable  cough  and  fever,  and  then  by  mental  dis- 
turbance. In  the  course  of  a  few  weeks  he  completely 
recovered. 

During  the  latter  part  of  October,  1788,  the  King 
seemed  to  be  not  in  his  usual  health.  He  had  con- 
siderable pain  in  his  limbs  ;  felt  weak ;  slept  but  little  ; 
was  hurried  and  vehement  in  his  manner.  On  the  22d 
he  "  manifested  an  agitation  of  spirits  bordering  on 
delirium,"  said  his  physician.  A  few  days  afterwards, 
on  returning  from  a  long  ride,  he  burst  into  tears  and 
said,  "  he  wished  to  God  he  might  die,  for  he  was  going 
to  be  mad."  He  kept  about  until  the  4th  of  November, 
when  he  had  an  outbreak  at  dinner,  and  was  consigned 
to  the  charge  of  attendants.  During  the  first  few  days 
there  was  considerable  constitutional  disturbance,  and 
it  was  feared  he  might,  not  survive.  One  of  Sheridan's 
correspondents  says  :  "  The  doctors  say  it  is  impossible 
to  survive  it  long,  if  his  situation  does  not  take  some 
extraordinary  change  in  a  few  hours.  ...  Since  this 
letter  was  begun,  all  articulation  even  seems  to  be 
at  an  end  with  the  poor  King  ;  but  for  the  two  hours 
preceding  he  was  in  a  most  determined  frenzy."  In  the 
course  of  the  succeeding  night  he  had  a  profuse  stool, 
then  perspired  freely  and  fell  into  a  profound  sleep.  He 
awoke  with  but  little  fever,  "  but  with  all  the  gestures 
and  ravings  of  the  most  confirmed  maniac,  and  a  new 


INSANITY   OF   KING   GEOEGE   THE   THIED.         437 

noise  in  imitation  of  the  howling  of  a  dog."  He  soon 
got  calmer,  and  talked  of  religion  and  of  being  inspired. 
A  day  or  two  after,  the  same  person  writes  :  "  This  morn- 
ing he  made  an  attempt  to  jump  out  of  the  window,  and 
is  now  very  turbulent  and  incoherent."  He  also  says 
that  the  King  revealed  some  state  secrets,  much  to  the 
astonishment  of  Pitt.1 

Miss  Burney,  afterwards  Madame  D'Arblay,  was  then 
in  the  personal  service  of  the  Queen;  and  in  her  "  Diary," 
recently  published,  the  progress  of  the  attack  may  be 
traced  with  some  degree  of  minuteness.  The  first  night 
after  the  outbreak  at  dinner,  she  says,  he  was  very 
restless,  getting  up  and  wandering  into  the  Queen's 
room  to  see  if  she  was  there,  and  talking  incessantly 
until  he  became  hoarse,  exclaiming,  "  I  am  not  ill,  I  am 
only  nervous."  "  He  was  never  so  despotic  ;  no  one 
dared  oppose  him.  He  would  not  listen  to  a  word." 
Next  night  he  got  up  and  insisted  on  going  into  the 
neighboring  room,  where  his  equerries  were.  There  he 
saw  his  physician,  Sir  George  Baker,  whom  he  called 
an  old  woman,  and  wondered  that  he  ever  took  his 
advice,  for  he  knew  nothing  of  his  complaint.  From 
this  time  he  rapidly  grew  worse.  On  the  12th  and 
13th  of  November  he  appeared  considerably  better,  and 
continued  so  until  the  20th,  when  he  became  as  bad 
as  ever.  From  this  period  his  condition  was  vari- 
able,—  always  more  or  less  excited  ;  rather  petulant,  if 
not  irascible  ;  scolding  his  gentlemen  for  slighting  him. 
On  the  29th  of  November  he  was  removed  to  Kew, 
where  were  better  opportunities  for  exercise.  Through 
the  month  of  December  there  was  little  if  any  change  in 
his  condition.  During  the  first  two  or  three  weeks  in 
January  he  became  less  irritable,  was    quite    calm  at 

1  Moore.     Life  of  Sheridan,  p.  360.    Amer.  edition. 


438         INSANITY   OF   KING   GEOKGE   THE   THIRD. 

times,  and  then  would  read  and  make  sensible  remarks 
on  what  he  had  read.  From  the  latter  part  of  the  month 
he  steadily  improved.  February  2d  Miss  Burney  acci- 
dentally saw  him  walking  in  the  garden ;  and  to  avoid 
meeting  him,  in  compliance  with  the  rules,  ran  off  at 
full  speed,  and  he  after  her,  the  physicians  and  attend- 
ants in  full  chase  after  him.  She  finally  stopped  until 
he  came  up,  when  he  put  his  arms  around  her  neck  and 
kissed  her.  He  talked  incessantly,  blurting  out  whatever 
came  uppermost.  "  He  seemed  to  have  just  such  re- 
mains of  flightiness  as  heated  his  imagination  without 
deranging  his  reason,  and  robbed  him  of  all  control  of 
his  speech,  though  nearly  in  his  perfect  state  of  mind  as 
to  his  opinions.  .  .  .  He  opened  his  whole  heart  to 
me,  expounded  all  his  sentiments,  and  acquainted  me 
with  all  his  intentions."  He  declared  he  -was  as  well 
as  he  ever  was  in  his  life,  talked  of  the  official  situation 
of  her  father,  of  music  (when  he  undertook  to  sing),  and 
then  of  her  friends.  He  said  he  was  dissatisfied  with 
his  ministers,  and  showed  a  list  of  new  ones  he  had  pre- 
pared. On  the  17th  he  received  the  Chancellor,  on  the 
18th  drank  tea  with  the  Queen,  and  on  the  7th  of  March  re- 
ceived the  address  ot  the  Lords  and  Commons  in  person.1 

One  of  his  first  excursions  after  recovery  was  to 
a  poor-house  in  the  course  of  erection,  of  which  he 
inspected  every  part,  especially  the  rooms  for  lunatics, 
and  expressed  much  satisfaction  that  such  excellent 
accommodations  were  provided  for  persons  laboring 
under  the  misfortune  of  insanity.  During  his  conva- 
lescence, it  is  said,  he  passed  much  of  his  time  in  read- 
ing the  debates  on  the  Regency  Bill.2 

The  King  was  attended  at  first  by  his  own  physicians, 

1  Diary  and  Letters,  chap.  x. 

2  Wraxall.    Posthumous  Memoirs  of  his  own  Time,  p.  520.     Phila. 


INSANITY   OF   KING   GEOEGE   THE    THIRD.         439 

Sir  George  Baker  and  Dr.  Warren ;  and  they  were 
shortly  after  joined  by  Sir  Lucas  Pepys,  Drs.  Reynolds, 
Gisborne,  and  Addington,  of  whom  the  latter  alone  had 
given  any  special  attention  to  the  treatment  of  insanity, 
and  he  discontinued  his  attendance  after  a  few  days. 
They  had  all  achieved  professional  distinction,  but  War- 
ren enjoyed  an  undisputed  preeminence.  He  was  not 
only  at  the  head  of  his  profession  in  London,  and  de 
servedly  so,  but  such  were  his  talents  and  manners  that 
he  associated  intimately  with  the  leading  men  of  the  day 
(Burke,  Fox,  Sheridan,  &c), and  was  appointed  physician 
to  the  Prince  of  Wales.  The  attack  not  readily  yielding, 
it  was  thought  proper  by  the  Queen  and  the  ministers, 
who  had  the  direction  of  these  matters,  to  have  the  con- 
stant attendance  of  some  one  particularly  skilled  in  dis- 
eases of  the  mind.  Their  choice  fell  on  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Francis  Willis.  This  gentleman  was  educated  for  the 
Established  Church,  and  took  charge  of  a  parish  in  Lin- 
colnshire. Having  some  knowledge  of  medicine,  in 
which  he  took  the  regular  degree  of  M.D.  at  Oxford  in 
1759,  he  was  fond  of  prescribing  for  the  medical  as  well 
as  the  spiritual  wants  of  his  people,  and  especially  for 
mental  diseases.  He  was  soon  regarded  as  very  suc- 
cessful in  this  department  of  the  healing  art,  and  was 
so  much  resorted  to  that  he  provided  an  establishment 
designed  expressly  for  the  treatment  of  the  insane.  He 
was  much  patronized  by  the  higher  classes,  and  for  fifty- 
eight  years  had  never  less  than  thirty  patients  under 
his  care.  He  was  at  this  time  seventy  years  old,  but 
"  seemed  to  be  exempt  from  all  the  infirmities  of  old 
age ;  and  his  countenance,  which  was  very  interesting,, 
blended  intelligence  with  an  expression  of  placid  self- 
possession."  2     Miss  Burney  describes  him  as  "  a  man  of 

1  Wraxall,  Idem,  p.  447. 


440          INSANITY   OF   KING    GEORGE   THE   THIRD. 

ten  thousand,  —  open,  honest,  dauntless,  light-hearted, 
innocent,  and  high-minded."  The  common  opinion  was 
that  he  was  employed  at  the  suggestion  of  Addington  ; 
but  a  lady  of  the  court  represents  that  the  step  was 
taken  at  the  instance  of  the  wife  of  one  of  the  equerries, 
her  mother  having  been  cured  by  Willis.1  He  joined  the 
corps  of  physicians  on  the  6th  of  December,  and  took 
up  his  quarters  in  the  palace.2  In  the  consultation 
which  settled  their  respective  functions,  Willis  was  to 
have  charge  of  the  domestic  and  strictly  moral  manage- 
ment; in  accordance,  however,  with  such  general  views 
as  had  been  agreed  upon.  The  medical  treatment  was 
arranged  in  the  morning  consultation ;  and  it  was  under- 
stood that  Willis  was  to  take  no  decisive  measure,  either 
medical  or  moral,  not  previously  discussed  and  permit- 
ted. Pepys,  G-isborne,  and  Reynolds  attended,  in  rota- 
tion, from  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  until  eleven  the 
next  morning.  Warren  or  Baker  visited  in  the  morning, 
saw  the  King,  consulted  with  Willis  and  the  physician 
who  had  remained  over  night,  and  agreed  with  them 
upon  the  bulletin  for  the  day.  Willis  was  soon  joined 
by  his  son  John,  whose  particular  function  seems  not 
to  have  been  very  definitely  settled.  Willis  professed  to 
regard  him  as  equal  to  himself  in  point  of  dignity  and 
responsibility,  but  his  colleagues  considered  him  as 
merely  an  assistant  to  his  father.  Two  surgeons  and 
two  apothecaries  were  also  retained,  each  one  in  turn 
staying  twenty-four  hours  in  the  palace.     The  personal 

1  Lady  Harcourt's  Diary.     British  Museum. 

2  Among  the  gossip  of  the  court,  it  was  related  that  the  "  King  asked 
Willis,  when  he  entered  the  room,  if  he,  who  was  a  clergyman,  was  not 

: ashamed  of  himself  for  exercising  such  a  profession.  '  Sir,'  said  Willis, 
'  our  Saviour  himself  went  about  healing  the  sick.'  '  Yes/  answered 
the  King,  '  but  he  had  not  £700  a  year  for  it.'  " —  Lord  Malmesbury's 
Diaries,  &c,  iv.  317. 


INSANITY   OF   KIXG   GEORGE   THE   THIRD.         441 

service  was  rendered  by  three  attendants,. whom  Willis 
had  procured  from  his  own  establishment,  and  the  King's 
pages,  —  one  attendant  and  one  page  being  constantly 
in  his  room.1 

The  medical  treatment  seems  to  have  consisted  chiefpy 
of  "  bark  and  saline  medicines. "  An  alterative  pill,  con- 
taining a  little  calomel,  was  given  him  once.  Once,  and 
once  only,  blisters  were  applied, — to  the  legs;  but 
they  occasioned  considerable  irritation  and  restlessness. 

It  was  determined  that  the  moral  management  of  the 
King  required  strict  seclusion  from  his  family  and  minis- 


1  And  vet,  notwithstanding:  all  this  attendance  and  supervision,  the 
King  told  Lord  Eldon  he  was  knocked  down  by  a  man  in  the  employ 
of  one  of  his  physicians.  "  When  I  got  up  again,"  he  added,  "  I  said  my 
foot  had  slipped,  and  ascribed  my  fall  to  that ;  for  it  would  not  do  for  me 
to  admit  that  the  King  had  been  knocked  down  by  any  one."  [Twiss, 
Public  and  Private  Life  of  Lord  Chancellor  Eldon,  chap,  xviii.]  From 
the  same  source,  no  doubt,  Miss  Burney  and  Lady  Harcourt  heard  what 
they  have  reported  respecting  the  brutal  treatment  suffered  by  the  King 
from  his  attendants.  They  represent  that  he  was  beaten,  starved,  chained 
to  a  staple,  and  enclosed  in  a  machine  which  left  him  no  liberty  of  motion. 
In  the  interview  with  Miss  Burney  in  the  garden,  already  mentioned,  the 
King  complained  that  one  of  the  attendants  knocked  him  down,  "  seized 
him  in  his  arms,  carried  liim  into  a  chamber,  and  throwing  him  violently 
on  a  sofa  exclaimed  in  an  insolent  manner  to  the  attendants,  "  There  is 
your  King  for  you."  That  two  silly  women  should  have  thought  these 
preposterous  stories  related  to  some  actual  occurrences  is  not  strange, 
though  Miss  Burney  herself  doubted  the  truth  of  the  last ;  but  when 
Mr.  Massey,  in  his  History  of  England  during  the  Reign  of  George  the 
Third  (hi.  384),  relates  them  as  if  they  were  unquestionably  true,  we 
are  almost  ready  to  relinquish  all  faith  in  history.  History,  it  is  said, 
repeats  itself.  With  equal  truth  we  may  say  that  the  tales  of  the  insane, 
and  the  way  they  are  received,  are  but  a  repetition,  generation  after  gen- 
eration, of  the  same  gross  delusion  and  childish  credulity.  The  stories 
of  George  the  Third  respecting  the  abuse  he  suffered,  —  how  like  those 
paragraphs  of  the  newspaper  reporter  and  the  sensational  novelist,  which 
in  our  own  day  kindle  the  wrath  of  those  worthy  people  who  are  always 
ready  to  accept  a  tale  of  outrage  for  gospel  truth,  without  evidence  and 
against  reason. 


442  INSANITY   OF   KING   GEORGE    THE   THIRD. 

ters,  and,  as  far  as  possible,  from  all  other  company. 
But  nothing  can  more  strikingly  indicate  the  change 
that  has  occurred  since  that  time,  in  respect  to  one  means 
of  managing  the  insane,  than  the  fact  that,  for  two  or 
three  months  after  Willis  took  charge,  the  King  was  fre- 
quently subjected  to  mechanical  restraint.  There  was 
nothing,  however,  in  his  condition  which  would  now 
be  considered  in  England  a  sufficient  reason  for  its 
application.  He  was  not  disposed  to  injure  his  person  or 
his  clothing,  his  attendants  or  his  furniture.  In  the 
King's  case  —  and  this,  no  doubt,  was  an  example  of  the 
ordinary  practice  —  it  was  evidently  used  by  way  of 
discipline,  as  a  means  of  subduing  turbulence  and  in- 
creasing self-control.  Willis  said,  in  his  second  exami- 
nation by  the  committee  of  the  House  of  Commons,  that 
when  he  took  charge  of  the  King  he  was  dissatisfied 
with  the  restraint  which  had  been  previously  used,  and 
for  five  days  "  endeavored  to  persuade  and  explain  "  that 
some  more  efficient  method  would  be  resorted  to,  unless 
there  was  a  "  ready  compliance  "  with  his  wishes.  The 
King  seems  to  have  been  insensible  to  this  kind  of  intimi- 
dation, and  the  new  mode  of  restraint  was  applied,  with 
the  effect,  as  Willis  states,  of  accomplishing  the  desired 
purpose  more  perfectly  than  before,  being  "  more  firm, 
but  not  so  teasing  to  the  patient."  It  does  not  appear 
what  means  of  restraint  were  used  by  Willis,  or  by  the 
other  physicians  in  subsequent  attacks,  but  an  incident 
related  by  Wraxall  renders  it  probable  that  one  of  them 
was  that  time-honored  implement  which  is  still  associated 
with  the  popular  idea  of  insanity.  While  walking  through 
the  palace,  during  his  convalescence,  accompanied  by  an 
equerry,  they  observed  a  strait-jacket  lying  in  a  chair. 
The  equerry,  averting  his  look,  as  if  to  conceal  some 
embarrassment,  the    King   said :     "  You   need  not   be 


INSANITY   OF   KING   GEORGE   THE   THIRD.         443 

afraid  to  look  at  it.  Perhaps  it  is  the  best  friend  I  ever 
had  in  my  life."1  This  incident  does  not  strengthen  a 
favorite  position  of  the  advocates  of  non-restraint,  viz., 
that  it  leaves  disagreeable  impressions  upon  the  patient's 
mind. 

Of  another  fact  respecting  the  King's  treatment  I  can- 
not find  a  sufficient  explanation.  Between  the  6th  of 
December  and  the  13th  of  January  he  went  out  of  doors 
but  twice,  and  for  a  month  previous  not  at  all.  Consid- 
ering the  form  of  the  disorder  and  the  facilities  for 
exercise  which  the  grounds  afforded,  this  is  certainly 
surprising.  On  one  occasion,  when  the  King  had  been 
promised  a  walk,  Dr.  Warren  revoked  the  promise, 
because,  as  the  day  was  cold,  and  the  King  had  perspired 
freely  in  the  night,  there  would  be  some  risk  of  his 
taking  cold.  It  appears  that  on  that  night  the  restraint 
had  not  been  removed  at  all. 

The  political  consequences  of  the  King's  illness  proved 
to  be  of  the  deepest  interest,  whether  we  regard  the 
magnitude  of  the  questions  at  issue,  or  the  men  by 
whom  they  were  discussed.  The  array  of  talent  which 
distinguished  the  Parliament  of  that  period  has  never 
been  equalled  before  or  since.  The  interests  of  the  ad- 
ministration were  supported  by  Pitt,  Thurlow,  and  Wil- 
berforce,  while  the  forces  of  the  opposition  were  led  by 
Fox,  Burke,  Sheridan,  Windham,  Grey,  Loughborough, 
and  North.  During  the  two  or  three  months  that  the 
struggle  lasted,  every  weapon  of  argument,  wit,  ridicule, 
and  invective  was  used  by  the  contending  parties  with 
a  dexterity  and  vigor  which  such  men  only  could  dis- 
play. 

When  the  King's  incapacity  was  announced,  Parlia- 

1  Posthumous  Memoirs,  &c,  p.  520. 


444         INSANITY   OF   KING   GEORGE   THE   THIRD. 

ment  immediately  set  about  to  provide  a  regency.  Both 
parties  agreed  that  the  Prince  of  Wales  should  be  the 
Regent,  but  differed  very  widely  as  to  the  exact  amount 
of  authority  and  privilege  he  should  receive.  The  Whigs 
contended  that  he  should  exercise  all  the  functions  of 
the  Sovereign  precisely  as  if  there  were  a  demise  of  the 
Crown.  The  ministers,  on  the  other  hand,  were  deter- 
mined to  hamper  the  Regent  with  limitations  and  restric- 
tions which  would  have  shorn  the  regal  office  of  much 
of  its  dignity  and  power.  The  real  question  at  issue, 
therefore,  was,  which  of  the  two  parties  that  divided  the 
country  should  possess  the  administration,  and  hence 
the  violent  party  spirit  which  characterized  all  the  po- 
litical proceedings  of  the  time.  The  first  step  was  to 
ascertain  officially  the  exact  condition  of  the  King,  and 
accordingly  each  House  appointed  a  committee  to  exam- 
ine his  physicians.  These  committees  proceeded  imme- 
diately to  the  duty  assigned  them,  and  within  a  couple 
of  days  their  reports  were  presented  to  their  respective 
Houses,  —  that  of  the  kords  on  the  10th,  that  of  the 
Commons  on  the  11th,  of  December. 

To  each  physician  was  put  the. following  questions: 
"  Is  his  Majesty  incapable,  by  reason  of  the  present  state 
of  his  health,  of  coming  to  Parliament,  or  of  attending 
to  public  business  ?  What  hopes  have  you  of  his  recov- 
ery? Is  your  answer  to  this  question  founded  upon 
the  particular  symptoms  of  his  Majesty's  case,  or  your 
experience  of  the  disorder  in  general  ?  Can  you  form 
any  judgment  or  probable  conjecture  of  the  time  his 
Majesty's  illness  is  to  last?  Can  you  assign  any  cause 
for  his  illness?  Do  you  see  any  signs  of  convales- 
cence?" The  replies  to  these  questions  evince  a  knowl- 
edge of  insanity  quite  creditable  to  men  not  expressly 
devoted  to  this  branch  of  the  science,  —  one  that  would 


INSANITY   OF   KING   GEORGE   THE   THIRD.         445 

hardly  be  expected  by  us  who  witness  so  frequently 
the  remarkable  discrepancies  of  opinion  that  characterize 
the  reports  of  medical  commissions,  albeit  they  may 
include  men  whose  names  are  not  entirely  unknown 
to  fame.  The  replies  also  evince  a  certain  discretion 
and  reserve  worthy  of  imitation  on  the  part  of  those 
who  are  called  upon  for  professional  opinions.  Few 
medical  witnesses  succeed,  as  most  of  these  gentlemen 
did,  in  hitting  that  happy  medium  between  saying  too 
much  and  saying  too  little.  They  all  expressed  strong 
hopes  of  the  King's  recovery,  because  the  majority  of 
patients  actually  do  recover,  and  they  saw  nothing  par- 
ticularly unfavorable  in  his  case.  None  of  them  saw  any 
signs  of  convalescence,  and,  with  one  exception,  none  of 
them  pretended  to  assign  causes  or  limits  to  his  disorder. 
Willis  said  he  would  recover  within  a  few  months,  and 
thought  the  attack  was  produced  by  "  weighty  business, 
severe  exercise,  too  great  abstemiousness,  and  little  rest." 
The  other  physicians  were  as  well  aware  as  Willis,  no 
doubt,  of  these  facts  in  the  history  and  habits  of  the 
King,  and  possessed  better  opportunities  than  he  had  of 
knowing  how  far  they  had  affected  his  mind,  but  re- 
frained from  assigning  them  as  causes  of  the  disorder. 
Willis's  opinion,  though  confidently  uttered,  was  merely 
a  speculation,  resting  on  no  very  substantial  grounds. 
The  King's  business  had  not  been  weightier  than  usual; 
and,  though  fond  of  exercise,  there  is  no  evidence  that 
he  carried  it  to  a  degree  incompatible  with  its  proper 
object,  the  promotion  of  health.  His  abstemiousness 
consisted  merely  in  avoiding  that  excessive  indulgence 
in  the  pleasures  of  the  table  which  was  common  among 
the  higher  classes  of  that  period,  and  was  practised  by 
him  for  the  purpose  of  warding  off  disease.  The  want 
of  sleep  was  probably  one  of  the  effects  rather  than  a 


446  INSANITY   OF   KING   GEORGE   THE   THIRD. 

cause  of  his  mental  affectiou.  Whether  the  committee 
were  satisfied  with  Willis's  theory  does  not  appear ;  but 
most  of  them  probably  were,  like  the  rest  of  the  world, 
curious  to  learn  the  cause  of  the  attack,  but  readily  sat- 
isfied with  elaborate  phrases  and  dogmatic  assertions. 2 
Sheridan,  however,  saw  in  it  a  fair  mark  for  his  wit,  and 
he  was  not  the  man  to  neglect  an  opportunity  of  that 
kind.  Willis  had  stated,  in  proof  of  the  correctness  of 
his  opinion,  that  the  medicine  which  had  been  given  to 
his  Majesty  ever  since  Sunday  morning,  in  order  to  meet 
and  counteract  those  causes,  had  had  as  much  effect 
as  he  could  wish,  and  "  his  Majesty  had  certainly  been 
gradually  better  from  the  first  six  hours  of  his  taking 
it.'7  The  orator  said  that,  when  he  heard  Dr.  Willis 
assert  that  his  physic  could,  in  one  day,  "  overcome  the 
effects  of  seven  and  twenty  years'  hard  exercise,  seven  and 
twenty  years'  study,  and  seven  and  twenty  years'  absti- 
nence, it  was  impossible  for  him  to  keep  the  gravity  fit 
for  the  subject.  Such  assertions  put  him  in  mind  of 
those  nostrums  that  cure  this  and  that,  and  also  disap- 
pointments in  love  and  long  sea-voyages."2 

The  policy  of  the  cabinet  was  to  make  it  appear  that 
the  King's  illness  would  be  of  short  duration,  and  let  it 
be  implied,  as  an  obvious  consequence,  that  the  measure 

1  Just  previous  to  the  attack,  an  eruption  on  the  legs,  of  some  duration, 
had  suddenly  disappeared.  This  incident,  considered  in  connection  with 
a  similar  one  in  the  first  attack,  may  be  fairly  regarded  as  a  more  efficient 
exciting  cause  than  any  one  of  those  mentioned  by  "Willis ;  and  yet  he 
overlooked  it  altogether. 

2  The  fact  that  the  medicine  referred  to  —  which  was  simply  Peruvian 
bark  —  was  determined  upon  in  the  consultation  of  the  whole  corps  of 
the  King's  physicians,  and  that  no  other  observed  any  improvement  in 
his  condition,  gives  additional  pungency  to  the  ridicule,  while  the  whole 
incident  throws  much  light  on  Willis's  character. 

The  Parliamentary  Debates  on  the  Regency  are  contained  in  the  27th 
volume  of  Hansard. 


INSANITY   OF    KING   GEORGE   THE    THIRD.         447 

of  appointing  a  regent  should  not  be  precipitated.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  policy  of  the  Whigs  was  to  represent 
the  disorder  as  incurable,  or,  at  least,  of  very  uncertain 
duration,  and  therefore  that  the  sooner  the  regency  was 
established  the  better  for  the  country.  In  this  view 
they  received  but  feeble  support,  certainly,  from  the 
examination  of  the  physicians ;  but  Warren,  who  was 
high  in  the  counsels  of  the  Whig  party,  had  privately 
encouraged  the  idea  that  the  King  would  never  recover. 
True,  in  his  examination  just  referred  to,  and  also  in  the 
examination  on  the  7th  of  January,  he  expressed  as 
much  confidence  as  the  others  in  his  ultimate  recovery. 
The  fact  furnishes  a  striking  illustration  of  the  distort- 
ing influence  of  party  spirit,  even  upon  the  views  of 
scientific  men  on  scientific  subjects.  Willis,  who  always 
professed  to  be  quite  sure  of  the  King's  recovery,  and 
was  equally  high  in  the  estimation  of  the  other  party, 
inspired  the  administration  with  confidence  in  the  policy 
they  had  adopted.  Every  occurrence  at  Kew  was  whis- 
pered about  in  political  circles,  before  it  was  many  hours 
old,  colored  and  exaggerated,  of  course,  by  the  prevalent 
hopes  and  fears.  The  names  of  Warren  and  Willis  became 
as  familiar  as  household  words,  and  even  served  as  rally- 
ing points  for  the  two  great  parties  into  which  the  country 
was  divided.  In  less  than  a  month  from  the  first  exami- 
nation, both  parties  were  equally  ready  for  another,  and 
equally  confident  of  deriving  political  capital  from  the 
result.  For  this  purpose  the  Commons  appointed  a 
select  committee,  which  commenced  its  sittings  on  the 
7th  of  January,  and  made  their  report,  400  folio  pages 
long,  on  the  13th. 2     The  same  questions  as  before  were 

1  The  report  of  the  first  examination  may  be  found  in  the  parliamentary- 
debates  and  annual  registers  of  the  time,  but  not  so  this,  which  long 
eluded  my  search,  until  found  in  a   collection  of  pamphlets,  entitled, 


448  INSANITY   OF   KING   GEORGE   THE   THIRD. 

put  to  the  physicians,  and  were  followed  by  the  same 
replies,  except  that  Willis,  when  asked  if  he  had  ob- 
served any  signs  of  convalescence,  replied  affirmatively. 
The  greater  part  of  the  examination  was  directed  to 
matters  having  only  an  incidental  connection  with  the 
King's  condition,  —  the  communications  sent  from  Kew 
to  the  ministers  and  other  leading  characters,  the  do- 
mestic arrangements  of  the  palace,  the  dissensions  of  the 
physicians,  the  merits  and  proceedings  of  the  Willises, 
—  to  anything,  indeed,  calculated  to  strengthen  one 
side  or  weaken  the  other.  Upon  the  signs  of  recovery 
or  convalescence  the  examination  was  particularly  search- 
ing, because,  more  than  anything  else,  they  determined 
the  political  movements  of  the  day.  Willis,  when  asked 
if  he  saw  any  present  signs  of  convalescence,  replied : 
"  About  a  fortnight  ago,  his  Majesty  would  take  up 
books  and  could  not  read  a  line  of  them ;  he  will  now 
read  several  pages  together,  and  make,  in  my  opinion, 
very  good  remarks  upon  the  subject.  I  think,  in  the 
main,  his  Majesty  does  everything  in  a  more  rational 
way  than  he  did,  and  some  things  extremely  rational." 
This  trait  had  been  observed  for  the  last  five  or  six 
days,  the  books  having  been  selected  by  the  King,  and 
read  aloud.  To  the  same  purpose,  he  also  stated  that 
his  patient  was  less  frequently  and  less  intensely  excited, 
and  less  frequently  required  restraint.  Beyond  the 
simple  acknowledgment  that  he  was  more  quiet,  the 
other  physicians  were  not  disposed  to  go,  in  regard  to 
the  signs  of  convalescence.  They  denied  that  he  had 
appeared  rational,  even  for  a  moment,  but  none  of  them 

"  History  of  the  Regency,"  published  by  Stockdale,  and  brought  to  ray 
notice  by  the  librarian  of  Brown  University,  Mr.  Guild.  From  this 
report  chiefly  I  have  obtained  all  that  seemed  worth  preserving  respect- 
ing the  management  of  the  King. 


INSANITY   OF   KING   GEOEGE    THE   THIRD.         449 

had  happened  to  see  the  King  reading,  and  they  were 
not  disposed  to  take  any  fact  of  Willis's  observing  as  a 
ground  for  their  opinions.  His  constant  attendance  gave 
him  an  advantage  over  his  colleagues,  for  it  enabled 
him  to  see  for  himself  much  that  they  would  never  know 
at  all,  or  only  at  second  hand ;  and  such  observations, 
we  are  all  very  well  aware,  sometimes  leave  a  stronger 
impression  on  the  mind  than  the  most  definite  and  tan- 
gible facts  communicated  by  others. 

Willis's  character,  conduct,  and  practices  were  sub- 
jected to  a  very  searching  scrutiny,  not  more  for  the 
purpose  of  obtaining  information  than  of  torturing  every 
incident  into  matter  of  censure  against  himself  or  his 
employers.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  he  gave  his  adver- 
saries abundant  opportunities  of  this  kind ;  for,  with  all 
his  experience,  and  the  frost  of  seventy  years  on  his 
head,  he  had  not  a  philosophical  turn  of  mind,  nor  the 
art  of  concealing  his  deficiency  by  a  prudent  reserve. 
He  had  stated  that  nine  out  of  ten  of  his  patients  recov- 
ered under  his  hands,  but  he  was  unable  to  tell  how  many 
he  had  received  or  how  many  he  had  cured.  When  fur- 
ther pressed,  he  said  that  the  ground  of  his  calculation 
was  the  fact  that  his  first  fifteen  patients  were  cured, 
and  that,  subsequently,  several  instances  occurred  often 
going  away  together  radically  cured.  The  declaration 
of  his  colleagues  respecting  this  alleged  success  —  that 
it  required  other  evidence  than  his  bare  assertion  — 
was  not  calculated  to  restore  the  harmony  which  had 
been  so  thoroughly  disturbed.  He  was  obviously  very 
restive  under  the  unusual  restrictions  imposed  upon 
him.  To  be  associated  on  equal  terms  with  some  half 
dozen  other  physicians,  equal  to  himself  in  professional 
eminence,  and  more  than  his  equals  in  general  culture, 
he  found  a  very  different  position  from  that  of  controlling 

29 


450  INSANITY   OF   KING   GEOEGE   THE   THIEU. 

an  establishment  where  his  simple  word  was  law.  He 
felt  —  very  correctly,  no  doubt  —  that  a  great  obstacle 
to  the  King's  recovery  consisted  in  his  being  obliged  to 
see  so  many  different  persons,  under  circumstances  cal- 
culated to  excite  strong  emotion.  He  was  actually  dis- 
turbed, and  sometimes  even  prevented  from  sleeping,  by 
the  visits  of  so  many  medical  men,  —  never  less  than  half 
a  dozen  every  day;  and,  accordingly,  Willis,  "thinking- 
it  his  duty,"  as  he  says,  "  to  do  for  his  Majesty  what  he 
should  do  for  any  private  gentleman/'  put  up  a  written 
notice  that  no  person  should  be  admitted  into  his  Maj- 
esty's rooms  without  permission  of  himself  or  son.  For 
this  order,  which  was  more  easily  given  than  enforced,  — 
for  none  of  his  colleagues  seem  to  have  regarded  it,  —  he 
was  severely  handled  by  the  committee,  who  endeavored 
to  make  it  appear  like  an  attempt  on  his  part,  and  that 
of  the  Lord  Chancellor,  whose  sanction  he  pleaded,  to 
conceal,  in  some  degree,  the  King's  real  condition. 

Another  obstacle  to  the  King's  recovery,  apprehended 
by  Willis,  seems  rather  fanciful  than  real.  "  When  his 
Majesty,"  he  says,  "  reflects  upon  an  illness  of  this  kind, 
it  may  depress  his  spirits  and  retard  his  cure  more  than 
a  common  person ; "  but,  subsequently,  he  states  that 
■'  this  apprehension  is  somewhat  relieved  by  his  knowl- 
edge of  the  King's  sense  of  religion,  which  may  lead 
him,  with  a  proper  resignation,  to  reflect  on  what  it  had 
pleased  God  to  afflict  him  with." 

The  want  of  good  faith  was  broadly  charged  upon 
Willis  by  his  colleagues,  and  in  the  examination  there 
came  out  one  instance  of  it  which  has  obtained  a  popular 
celebrity.  Warren  stated  that,  on  the  day  Willis  arrived, 
it  was  agreed,  in  general  consultation,  "  that  quiet  of 
body  and  mind  were  to  be  endeavored  to  be  obtained  by 
every  means  possible ;  and  that  everything  should  be 


IXSAXITY   OF   KIXG   GEORGE   THE   THIRD.         451 

kept  from  his  Majesty  that  was  likely  to  excite  any 
emotion;  —  that  though  his  Majesty  had  not  shown  any 
signs  of  an  intention  to  injure  himself,  yet  that  it  was 
absolutely  necessary,  considering  the  sudden  impulses  to 
which  his  distemper  subjects  people,  to  put  everything 
out  of  the  way  that  could  do  any  mischief."  The  very 
next  day,  however,  he  put  into  the  King's  hand  a  razor 
and  a  penknife.  "  I  asked  him,"  says  Warren,  "  how  he 
could  venture  to  do  such  a  thing.  He  said  he  shuddered 
at  what  he  had  done."  Willis  said,  in  explanation,  that 
the  King  "  had  not  been  shaved  for  a  long  while,  perhaps 
a  fortnight  or  three  weeks  ;  and  the  person  that  had 
been  used  to  shave  him  could  not  complete  the  parts  of 
his  upper  and  under  lips  ;  and  being  confident,  from  the 
professions  and  humor  of  his  Majesty  at  that  moment, 
I  suffered  his  Majesty  to  shave  his  lips  himself;  and  then 
he  desired  he  might  have  his  whole  face  lathered,  that 
he  might  just  run  over  it  with  a  razor ;  and  he  did  so  in 
a  very  calm  manner.  His  nails  also  wanted  cutting  very 
much  ;  and,  upon  his  assurance,  and  upon  my  confidence 
in  his  looks,  I  suffered  him  to  cut  his  own  nails  with  a 
penknife,  while  I  stood  by  him.  It  is  necessary  for  a 
physician,  especially  in  such  cases,  to  be  able  to  judge, 
at  the  moment,  whether  he  can  confide  in  the  professions 
of  his  patient ;  and  I  never  was  disappointed  in  my 
opinion  whether  the  professions  of  the  patient  were  to 
be  relied  on  or  no."  He  denied  that  he  said  to  Warren, 
he  shuddered  at  what  he  had  done,  and  also  denied  that, 
in  regard  to  such  matters,  he  ever  agreed  not  to  be 
governed  solely  by  his  own  discretion.  After  professing 
such  views,  he  found  it  a  little  inconvenient  to  answer 
the  question,  why  he  never  afterwards  repeated  this 
indulgence.  He  replied,  however,  that  it  had  a  bad 
moral  effect,  his  Majesty  taking  it  ill  that  he  was  not 


452         INSANITY   OF   KING   GEORGE   THE   THIRD. 

allowed  other  privileges,  such  as  going  upstairs  to  see 
his  family,  and  doing  other  imprudent  things.  "  Do  you 
think,"  asked  the  committee,  "  that  the  expectation  of 
the  liberties  which  the  King  might  call  for  would  be 
of  more  danger  to  him  than  the  use  of  razors  and  pen- 
knives ?  "  "  To  be  sure,"  was  the  reply,  "  because  the  re- 
fusal would  irritate  him  much  and  increase  his  disorder." 
"  Whether,"  continues  the  committee,  "  you  refuse  to  the 
King  all  indulgences  which  may  be  safely  given,  lest  he 
should  demand  those  that  ought  to  be  refused  ?  "  "I  do 
a  great  many,"  said  Willis.  Those,  certainly,  were  very 
embarrassing  questions. 

This  incident  furnished  Burke  with  the  materials  of  a 
violent  diatribe  against  the  ministers,  who,  he  said,  had 
committed  his  Majesty  to  the  care  of  a  man  in  whose 
hands  he  was  not  safe  for  a  moment. x 

It  also  came  out  that,  within  five  days  after  he  took 
charge  of  the  King,  Willis  allowed  him  to  have  an  inter- 


1  There  is  a  traditionary  anecdote  connected  with  this  razor  scene, 
strongly  illustrative,  if  true,  of  Willis's  character.  Burke  asked  him,  it 
is  said,  what  he  would  have  done,  if  the  King  had  suddenly  become  vio- 
lent while  these  instruments  were  in  his  hand.  Having  placed  the  candles 
between  them,  he  replied,  "  There,  sir,  by  the  eye  !  I  should  have 
looked  at  him  thus,  sir, —  thus  !  "  whereupon  Burke  instantaneously  averted 
his  head  and  made  no  reply.  If  such  a  scene  as  this  occurred  at  all,  it 
could  not  have  been  in  the  committee-room,  as  Burke  was  not  on  the 
committee.  Why  so  prominent  a  member  of  the  House  was  not  placed 
on  the  committee  with  Fox,  Sheridan,  &c,  has  always  been  a  matter  of 
surprise.  The  authority  for  this  anecdote  is  Reynolds,  the  playwright, 
who  says  he  had  it  from  Willis  himself.  (Life,  &c,  ii.  15.)  Among  the 
gossip  of  the  day  was  a  similar  story  respecting  the  effect  of  Willis's 
tone  on  Sheridan  when  about  to  examine  him.  "  '  Pray,  sir,  before  you 
begin,'  said  Willis,  '  be  so  good  as  to  snuff  the  candles,  that  we  may  see 
clear,  for  I  always  like  to  see  the  face  of  the  man  I  am  speaking  to.' 
Sheridan  was  so  confounded  at  this  speech  of  the  basilisk  Doctor,  that 
he  could  not  get  on  in  his  examination,  and  for  once  in  his  life  he  was 
posed."     (Swinburne's  Courts  of  Europe,  ii.  75.) 


INSANITY   OF   ETNG   GEOEGE   THE   THIRD.         453 

view  with  his  daughters,  and  another  with  the  Queen, 
without  the  consent  or  knowledge  of  his  colleagues,  and 
contrary,  as  they  alleged,  to  the  terms  of  their  agree- 
ment. In  defence  of  his  course,  he  said  :  "  I  am  sure 
that  such  occurrences  can  scarce  be  too  frequent,  as  it 
comforts  the  patient  to  think  that  he  is  with  his  family, 
and  that  they  are  affectionate  to  him  ;  and  upon  inquiries 
of  patients  who  have  been  cured  of  the  same  indispo- 
sition, they  have  always  mentioned  those  occurrences 
having  given  them  the  greatest  comfort,  and,  as  they 
thought,  helped  very  much  towards  their  recovery. 
.  .  .  The  irritation  occasioned  by  a  patient's  seeing 
his  friends  or  relations  is  entirely  overbalanced  by  the 
softening  him  into  tears,  which  ever  leads  to  amend- 
ment." 

Another  incident  in  Willis's  management,  which  had 
greatly  scandalized  his  colleagues,  was  deemed  worthy 
of  the  notice  of  the  committee.  It  was  the  allowing 
his  Majesty  to  read  the  tragedy  of  Lear.  It  seems 
he  refused  the  King's  request  to  have  it,  though  too 
crazy,  he  thought,  to  be  affected  by  it,  one  way  or 
the  other ;  but  allowed  him  to  have  a  volume  of  plays, 
which  happened,  without  his  knowledge,  to  contain 
Lear.1 

In  the  practical  knowledge  of  insanity,  and  the  man- 
agement of  the  insane,  Willis  was  unquestionably  in  ad- 
vance of  his  associates  ;  but,  following  the  bent  of  his 
dictatorial  habits,  he  often  spoke  without  measuring  his 
words,  and  often  overstepped  the  limits  of  professional 
etiquette.  Hence  he  suffered  under  the  severe  hand- 
ling of  the  committee,  to  whom  he  presented  a  good 

1  Willis's  statement  that  he  had  never  read  this  play  is  not  calculated 
to  raise  our  estimate  of  his  general  culture. 


454         INSANITY   OF   KING   GEOEGE   THE   THIED. 

many  vulnerable  points  of  attack.  It  is  obvious,  in  fact, 
that  Willis  was  a  bit  of  a  charlatan,  and  not  always 
above  the  arts  of  that  character.  Sheridan  remarked, 
in  one  of  his  speeches,  that  Willis  professed  to  have  the 
gift  of  seeing  the  heart  by  looking  at  the  countenance  ; 
and  added,  looking  at  Pitt,  that  the  declaration  seemed 
to  alarm  the  Right  Honorable  gentleman.1 

But,  with  all  these  imperfections,  it  cannot  be  denied 
that  Willis  evinced  much  practical  sagacity  in  his  views 
of  the  nature  and  management  of  mental  disease,  and  a 
sturdy  independence  and  self-reliance  which,  while  they 
are  always  elements  in  a  great  character,  were  in 
him,  under  the  circumstances,  very  remarkable.  Let 
those  who  are  emulous  of  his  success  strive  to  imitate 
him  in  these  qualities,  rather  than  in  his  dogmatism  and 
disregard  of  professional  observances. 

The  report  of  the  committee  was  a  fruitful  topic  in  the 
subsequent  debates  in  Parliament,  furnishing  fresh  ma- 
terials for  declamation  and  intrigue.  On  no  other  occa- 
sion, probably,  were  the  prominent  qualities  of  the  cele- 
brated men  who  figured  at  that  period  more  strikingly 
exhibited.  Night  after  night,  for  weeks  together,  wit- 
nessed the  unrivalled  self-possession  of  Pitt,  the  clear, 
close,  vehement  argumentation  of  Fox,  the  irresistible 
wit  of  Sheridan,  the  multifarious  knowledge  and  riotous 
fancy  of  Burke.  But  the  prize,  which  seemed  to  be 
almost  within  the  grasp  of  the  Whigs,  rapidly  receded 
from  their  view.  Towards  the  last  of  January  the  King 
had  unquestionably  improved,  and  on  the  25th  of  Feb- 
ruary Warren  signed  a  report  declaring  him  "  free  from 
complaint." 

1  There  is  nothing  of  this  kind  in  the  report  of  the  committee,  but  it 
may  have  been  suppressed.  Sheridan  would  hardly  have  invented  the 
fact,  and  then  called  on  Pitt  to  witness  its  truth. 


INSANITY   OF   KING   GEORGE   THE   THIRD.         455 

The  question  of  recovery  was  also  embarrassing,  for 
although  it  might  be  obvious  enough  to  the  family  and 
friends,  yet  it  was  not  so  easy  to  establish  it  satisfac- 
torily to  the  country.  An  apparent  recovery  is  not 
always  a  real  one.  Often,  after  a  person  seems  to  have 
regained  his  natural  feelings  and  views,  and  has  recog- 
nized his  mental  disorder,  and  is  preparing,  perhaps,  to 
resume  his  customary  pursuits,  he  again  passes  under 
the  cloud,  and,  to  all  appearance,  is  as  far  from  sanity  as 
ever.  Burke  was  as  ready  for  this  as  for  any  other 
occasion,  and  his  remarks  upon  it  exhibited  his  wonder- 
ful faculty  of  acquiring  and  appropriating  every  descrip- 
tion of  knowledge.  "  The  disorder,"  said  he,  "  with 
which  his  Majesty  was  afflicted,  was  like  a  vast  sea 
which  rolled  in,  and  at  low  tide  rolled  back  and  left  a 
bold  and  barren  shore.  He  had  taken  pains/'  he  con- 
tinued, "  to  make  himself  master  of  the  subject,  he  had 
turned  over  every  book  upon  it,  and  had  visited  the 
dreadful  mansions  where  those  unfortunate  beings  were 
confined.  .  .  .  An  author  of  great  authority,  having 
mentioned  the  uncertainty  of  the  symptoms  of  sanity, 
had  declared  that,  after  having  been  kept  a  month  (and 
the  rule  was,  at  all  the  houses  he  had  visited,  though 
anxious  to  discharge  the  patients  speedily,  as  they  all 
were,  to  keep  them  a  month  after  their  recovery  before 
they  turned  them  out  of  the  house),  they  would  some- 
times dread  the  day  of  their  departure,  and  relapse 
on  the  very  last  day.  .  .  .  He  drew  a  picture  of  the 
King's  supposed  return,  which  he  described  as  most 
happy,  if  really  cured ;  but  as  horrible  in  the  ex- 
treme, in  its  consequences,  if  a  sudden  relapse  took 
place." 

The  only  effect  of  the  King's  alleged  convalescence 
was  to  suspend  all  Parliamentary  proceedings  relative 


456         INSANITY   OF   KING   GEOKGE   THE   THIED. 

to  a  regency,  while,  quietly  and  without  opposition,  he 
resumed  one  after  another  his  regal  functions.1 

His  Majesty's  third  attack2  began  about  the  22d  of 
February,  1801 ;  and  though  supposed  by  the  public  to 
have  recovered  within  three  or  four  weeks,  it  is  certain 
that  he  was  not  fully  restored  until  the  last  of  June. 
He  was  attended  by  Drs.  Gisborne,  Reynolds,  Pepys, 
John  Willis,  Robert  Darling  Willis,  and  Thomas  Willis,3 

1  Willis  Was  rewarded  by  Parliament  with  a  pension  of  £1,500  for 
twenty-one  years.  He  was  shortly  after  employed  to  treat  the  Queen  of 
Portugal,  but  she  proved  to  be  incurable.  For  this  service  he  received 
£20,000.  These  fees  were  without  a  parallel  in  the  records  of  the  medical 
profession.  Dr.  John  Willis  received  for  his  services  £650  per  year  dur- 
ing his  life. 

In  Frederick  Reynolds's  "  Life  and  Times,"  I  find  the  following  notice 
of  Willis's  establishment :  "  Gretford  and  its  vicinity  at  that  time  ex- 
hibited one  of  the  most  peculiar  and  singular  sights  I  ever  witnessed.  As 
the  unprepared  traveller  approached  the  town,  he  was  astonished  to  find 
almost  all  the  surrounding  ploughmen,  gardeners,  threshers,  thatchers,  and 
other  laborers,  attired  in  black  coats,  white  waistcoats,  black  silk  breeches 
and  stockings,  and  the  head  of  each  '  Men  poudre,  frise,  et  arrange'.'  These 
were  the  Doctor's  patients ;  and  dress,  neatness  of  person,  and  exercise 
being  the  principal  features  of  his  admirable  system,  health  and  cheerful- 
ness conjoined  to  aid  the  recovery  of  every  person  attached  to  that  most 
valuable  asylum.  The  Doctor  kept  an  excellent  table,  and  the  day  I 
dined  with  him  I  found  a  numerous  company.  Amongst  others  of  his 
patients,  in  a  state  of  convalescence,  present  on  this  occasion,  were  a  Mrs. 
B.,  a  lady  of  large  fortune,  who  had  lately  recovered  under  the  Doctor's 
care,  but  declined  returning  into  the  world  from  the  dread  of  a  relapse  ; 
and  a  young  clergyman,  who  occasionally  read  service  and  preached  for 
the  Doctor.  Nothing  occurred  out  of  the  common  way  till  soon  after  the 
cloth  was  removed,  when  I  saw  the  Doctor  frown  at  a  patient,  who 
immediately  hastened  from  the  room,  taking  with  him  my  tail,  which  he 
had  slyly  cut  off." 

2  "  Mrs.  Goodenough  (sister  to  Mr.  Addington)  told  Miss  Jennings 
that  the  King  had  an  attack  somewhat  similar  to  the  present  in  1795, 
from  which  he  recovered  in  about  a  week."  (Diary  and  Correspondence 
of  Hon.  George  Rose,  i.  322.) 

3  Robert  and  John  Willis  were  sons  of  Francis,  and  probably  Thomas 
was,  but  of  this  I  am  not  quite  certain.      Lord  Sidmouth  (Addington) 


IXSAXITY   OF   KIXG   GEORGE   THE    THIRD.         457 

who  seems  to  have  been  a  clergyman  as  well  as  a  doc- 
tor. The  early  stage  of  the  disease  was  much  like  that 
of  1788,  except  in  being  of  shorter  duration.  On  March 
2d  there  seems  to  have  been  a  sudden  exacerbation  of 
his  disorder  ;  but  about  five  p.m.  he  fell  into  sound  sleep, 
which  continued  a  couple  of  hours.  Shortly  after,  he 
again  went  to  sleep,  and  continued  sleeping  until  four 
a.m.,  when  he  awoke  quite  tranquil,  and  asked  how  long 
he  had  been  ill.  In  the  mean  time  his  pulse  fell  from 
134  to  84.1  After  the  first  week  or  two  he  could  control 
his  morbid  manifestations  to  such  a  degree  that,  to  them 
who  saw  him  only  occasionally,  he  seemed  to  be  less 
under  the  influence  of  disease  than  he  really  was.  In- 
deed, as  early  as  the  7th  of  March  he  played  at  back- 
gammon and  piquet,  and  it  was  commonly  reported  and 
commonly  believed  that  he  had  completely  recovered, 
though  on  the  4th  Reynolds  had  stated  that  "  much  time 
would  be  necessary  to  complete  the  cure."  2  The  bulle- 
tins ceased  on  the  12th  of  March,  when  Reynolds  ended 
his  attendance.  He  received  the  resignation  of  Mr.  Pitt 
on  the  14th,  and  transacted  business  on  the  17th.3  He 
continued  under  medical  care  until  the  end  of  June, 
appearing  very  well  whenever  circumstances  required 
the  exercise  of  self-control,  but  constantly  exciting  the 


says  (Diary,  iii.  38)  that  "  Dr.  Willis  and  his  two  sons  got  £10,000."  In 
the  beginning  of  this  attack  it  was  proposed  to  send  for  the  elder  Willis  ; 
but  the  proposal  met  with  opposition,  the  reason  for  which  may  be  found, 
probably,  in  the  remark  made  by  Addington  to  Lord  Colchester,  that  old 
Willis  was  "rude  and  violent."  (Colchester,  i.  244.)  He  finally  came, 
however,  as  early  as  the  27th  of  February ;  but  how  long  he  stayed  does 
not  appear.  It  could  not  have  been  long,  for  his  name  is  scarcely  men- 
tioned in  the  contemporary  notices  of  the  King's  illness, 
i  Rose,  i.  325. 

2  Diaries  of  Lord  Malmesbury,  iv.  28. 

3  Rose,  i.  335. 


458         INSANITY   OF   KING   GEORGE   THE   THIRD. 

apprehensions  of  his  family  and  physicians  by  some 
manifestations  of  mental  disturbance.  It  appears  that 
some  time  in  May,  apparently,  the  royal  family  were 
all  at  Kew ;  but  the  King  was  kept  in  a  house  by  him- 
self, in  the  immediate  charge  of  the  Willises.1  John 
Willis,  writing  to  Lord  Eldon,  May  16th,  intimates  that 
"  artificial  prudence  "  is  still  absolutely  necessary,  and 
informs  him  that  his  conversations  with  the  King  have 
not  been  of  much  service.  "  He  seems,"  he  continues, 
"  rather  to  select  and  turn  any  part  to  his  purpose  than 
to  his  good."2  Five  days  after,  Addington  writes  to 
Lord  Eldon  that,  "  during  a  quiet  conversation  of  an 
hour  and  a  half,  there  was  not  a  sentiment,  a  word,  a 
look,  or  a  gesture,  that  I  could  have  wished  different 
from  what  it  was  ;  and  yet  my  apprehensions,  I  must 
own  to  you,  predominate.  The  wheel  is  likely  to  turn 
with  increasing  velocity  (as  I  cannot  help  fearing)  ;  and 
if  so,  it  will  very  soon  become  unmanageable."  3  Four 
days  after,  one  of  the  Willises  writes  that  the  King  "  is 
in  a  perfectly  composed  and  quiet  state.  He  told  me, 
with  great  seeming  satisfaction,  that  he  had  a  most 
charming  night,  — i  but  one  sleep  from  eleven  to  half- 
past  four ;' when,  alas !  he  had  but  three  hours' sleep 
in  the  night,  which  upon  the  whole  was  passed  in  rest- 
lessness, in  getting  out  of  bed,  opening  the  shut- 
ters, in  praying  at  times  violently.  .  .  .  He  frequently 
called,  '  I  am  now  perfectly  well,  and  my  Queen,  my 
Queen  has  saved  me.'  .  .  .  The  King  has  sworn  he 
will  never  forgive  her  if  she  relates  anything  that 
passes  in  the  night."4  June  9th,  one  of  the  royal  family 
writes  to  Thomas  Willis,  "  He  has  been  very  quiet,  very 

i  Rose,  i.  354. 

2  Twiss,  Public  and  Private  Life  of  Lord  Chancellor  Eldon,  i.  204. 

3  Idem,  i.  205.  4  Idem,  i.  205. 


INSANITY   OF   KING    GEORGE   THE   THIRD.         459 

heavy,  and  very  sleepy.  .  .  .  God  grant  that  his  eyes 
may  soon  open,  and  that  he  may  see  his  real  and 
true  friends  in  their  true  colors."  Three  days  after,  she 
again  writes  that  "  the  sleepiness  continues  to  a  great 
degree.  I  am  told  the  night  has  been  tolerable,  but  he 
has  got  up  in  his  usual  way,  which  is  very  vexatious."1 
Four  days  after,  one  of  the  Williseswrit.es:  "  His  Maj- 
esty rode  out  this  morning  at  ten  o'clock,  and  did  not 
return  till  four.  He  paid  a  visit  in  the  course  of  the 
day  to  Mr.  Dundas.  His  attendants  thought  him  much 
hurried,  and  so  did  his  pages.  He  has  a  great  thirst 
upon  him,  and  his  family  are  in  great  fear.  His  Majesty 
still  talks  much  of  his  prudence,  but  he  shows  none.  His 
body,  mind,  and  tongue  are  all  upon  the  stretch  every 
minute  ;  and  the  manner  in  which  he  is  now  expending 
money  in  various  ways,  which  is  so  unlike  him  when 
well,  all  evince  that  he  is  not  so  right  as  he  should  be."2 

A  considerable  change  seems  to  have  occurred  within 
a  few  days  of  the  date  of  this  letter,  since  his  physicians 
were  discharged,  and  we  hear  no  more  of  his  disorder. 
He  was  strongly  averse  to  having  the  Willises  any  longer 
about  him  ;  though,  as  he  says,  "  he  respected  the  char- 
acter and  conduct  of  Robert  Willis."  "  No  one,"  he  says, 
"  who  has  had  a  nervous  fever  can  bear  to  continue  the 
physicians  employed  on  the  occasion."3 

During  the  first  three  weeks  of  the  attack  there  was 
actually  a  suspension  of  the  royal  functions,  and  with  it 
a  suspension  of  some  political  arrangements  of  the  high- 

1  Twiss,  i.  206.  2  Idem,  i.  208. 

3  The  only  tiling  respecting  the  medical  treatment  in  this  attack  which 
has  rewarded  my  inquiries  is,  that  the  Prime  Minister,  Mr.  Addington, 
one  day  recommended  a  hop  pillow  for  procuring  sleep,  which  proved 
perfectly  successful.  "  In  this  attack  sleep  always  calmed  and  quieted 
the  King,  while  in  that  of  1788  he  would  awake  from  a  long  sleep  more 
turbulent  than  ever."     (Malmesbury,  Diaries,  iv.  46.) 


460  INSANITY    OF   KING   GEORGE   THE    THIRD. 

est  importance.  Pitt  had  resigned,  but  there  was  no 
one  to  receive  his  resignation,  or  sign  the  commission 
of  his  successor ;  so  that  it  would  have  been  difficult  to 
answer  the  question,  Who  is  now  Prime  Minister  ?  Of 
the  other  members  of  the  administration  some  had 
resigned,  and  their  successors  had  taken  their  places ; 
while  others  who  had  resigned  still  held  on,  because 
their  successors  had  not  been  sworn  in.  Pitt  and  his 
friends  continued  to  perform  the  necessary  routine 
duties  of  their  offices,  and  Mr.  Addington  held  constant 
communication  with  the  palace.1  This  change  of  minis- 
try, which  was  exceedingly  distasteful  to  the  King,  was 
regarded  by  some  as  the  exciting  cause  of  this  attack ; 
but  it  is  probable  that  the  differences  between  the 
Prince  of  Wales  and  his  wife  had  also  much  to  do  with 
it.  It  was  ushered  in  by  a  violent  cold,  which  he  con- 
tracted by  remaining  long  in  church  on  the  13th,  —  a 
chilly,  snowy  day. 

Again,  on  the  12th  of  February,  1804,  the  King  mani- 
fested unequivocal  signs  of  mental  disease,  occasioned, 
it  was  thought,  by  the  publication  of  certain  correspond- 
ence between  the  Prince  of  Wales  and  the  Duke  of 
York,  and  immediately  preceded  by  a  cold  and  a  conse- 
quent fit  of  the  gout.  This  attack  continued  longer  than 
the  last ;  but,  like  that,  was  much  less  severe  than  the 
attack  of  1788.  He  was  attended  by' Sir  Lucas  Pepys, 
Dr.  Eeynolds,  Dr.  Heberden,  and  Dr.  Simmons,  physi- 
cian of  St.  Luke's,2  and  was  in  the  particular  charge  of 

i  Life,  &c,  of  Lord  Sidmouth,  by  Pellew,  i.  309. 

2  Why  none  of  the  Willises  were  employed  on  this  occasion  does  not 
appear.  It  was  probably,  however,  for  the  same  reason  that  was  alleged 
for  their  not  being  employed  at  first  in  the  next  attack, —  viz.,  the  Queen's 
apprehension  that  their  presence  would  excite  unpleasant  associations 
in  the  King's  mind.  In  fact,  the  King  conceived  a  strong  dislike  for  the 
Willises ;  but  it  seems  to  have  been  a  common  impression  at  court 


INSANITY   OF    KIXG   GEOEGE    THE    THIED.         461 

the  latter,  who  resided  in  the  palace.  The  few  scanty 
notices  I  have  been  able  to  find  convey  but  little  in- 
formation respecting  the  character  or  progress  of  this 
attack.  About  the  25th  of  February  it  was  generally 
understood  that  the  King  was  improving;  but  in  the 
bulletin  of  the  26th  it  was  stated  that  his  speedy  re- 
covery could  not  be  expected.1  We  learn  that  on  the 
9th  of  March  Lord  Eldon  walked  with  him  around  the 
garden,  when  he  observed,  as  he  says,  "at  first  a  mo- 
mentary hurry  and  incoherence  in  his  Majesty's  talk; 
but  this  did  not  endure  two  minutes.  During  the  rest 
of  the  walk  there  was  not  the  slightest  aberration  in  his 
Majesty's  conversation,  and  he  gave  me  the  history  of 
every  administration  in  his  reign."2  On  the  23d  of 
April  he  presided  at  a  council.  On  the  2d  of  May 
Addington  walked  with  him  in  the  garden,  and  thought 
him  perfectly  well.3  Five  days  after,  Pitt  conversed 
with  him  three  hours,  and  was  "  amazed  at  his  cool  and 
collected  manner."  i  May  25th,  the  Duke  of  York  writes 
that  the  King  seems  to  dwell  much  upon  the  illegality 
of  his  confinement ;  and  the  next  day  Pitt,  in  a  note  to 
Eldon,  expresses  some  alarm  in  reference  to  a  conver- 
sation in  one  of  the  audiences  two  days  before.  "  The 
topics  treated  of  were  such  as  did  not  at  all  arise  out  of 
any  view  (right  or  wrong)  of  the  actual  state  of  things, 

( Malniesbury ,  iv.  316)  that  they  managed  him  much  better  than  Sim- 
mons. 

1  Bulletins  must  necessarily  be  brief  and  very  general  in  their  terms, 
and  therefore  not  calculated  to  convey  very  accurate  information ;  but 
those  which  -were  issued  by  the  physicians  during  this  illness  often  indi- 
cate much  confusion  of  ideas,  and  an  uncertain,  vacillating  prognosis, 
which  did  not  escape  the  notice  nor  the  censure  of  Parliament.  For  in- 
stance, the  very  next  day  after  the  bulletin  above  mentioned,  the  bulletin 
said,  "  He  is  still  better  than  he  was  yesterday,  and  gradually  approach- 
ing recovery."     (Rose,  ii.  121.) 

*  Twiss,  i.  228.      3  Life  of  Sidmouth,  i.  313.     4  Malmesbury,  iv.  306. 


462  INSANITY   OF   KING   GEORGE    THE   THIRD. 

but  referred  to  plans  of  foreign  politics,  that  could  only 
be  creatures  of  an  imagination  heated  and  disordered."1 

About  the  same  time,  his  family  and  physicians  re- 
marked an  unduly  familiar  tone  of  conversation,  and  other 
little  improprieties  of  manner.  When  conversing  on 
serious  matters  and  business,  he  was  cool,  rational,  and 
dignified ;  but  on  lighter  subjects  he  would  indulge  in 
unseemly  levities.  Pitt  advised  him  in  a  letter  to  put 
himself  under  medical  direction,  and  Eldon  did  the  same. 
The  King,  after  reading  them,  said  he  had  received  two 
very  foolish  letters.2  Since  1801  he  had  conceived  and 
often  expressed  a  great  dislike  of  medical  men. 

His  conduct  at  this  period,  as  described  by  one  of 
his  court,  indicates  a  phasis  of  insanity  which,  though 
common  enough,  is  apt  to  be  greatly  misunderstood  by 
people  not  professionally  acquainted  with  the  subject. 
"  Mrs.  Harcourt  confirms  all  that  Lady  Uxbridge  had 
told  me,  —  that  the  King  was  apparently  quite  well 
when  speaking  to  his  ministers,  or  to  those  who  kept 
him  in  a  little  awe :  but  that  towards  his  family  and  de- 
pendants his  language  was  incoherent  and  harsh,  quite 
unlike  his  usual  character.  She  said  Symonds  did  not 
possess  in  any  degree  the  talents  required  to  lead  the 
mind  from  wandering  to  steadiness  ;  that  in  the  King's 
two  former  illnesses  this  had  been  most  ably  managed 
by  the  Willises,  who  had  this  faculty  in  a  wonderful 
degree,  and  were  men  of  the  world,  who  saw  ministers, 
and  knew  what  the  King  ought  to  do ;  that  the  not  suf- 
fering them  to  be  called  in  was  an  unpardonable  proof 
of  folly  (not  to  say  worse)  in  Addington,  and  now  it 
was  impossible,  since  the  King's  aversion  for  them  was 
rooted  ;  that  Pitt  judged  ill  in  leaving  the  sole  dis- 
posal of  the  household  to  the  King ;  that  this  sort  of 
i  Twiss,  i.  244.  2  Rose,  ii.  149. 


INSANITY   OF   KING   GEORGE   THE   THIRD.         463 

power,  in  his  present  weak  and  of  course  suspicious 
state  of  mind,  had  been  exercised  by  him  most  improp- 
erly. He  had  dismissed  and  turned  away,  and  made 
capricious  changes  everywhere,  from  the  Lord  Cham- 
berlain to  the  grooms  and  footmen.  He  had  turned 
away  the  Queen's  favorite  coachman,  made  footmen 
grooms,  and  vice  versa;  and  what  was  still  worse,  be- 
cause more  notorious,  had  removed  lords  of  the  bed- 
chamber without  a  shadow  of  reason ;  that  all  this 
afflicted  the  royal  family  beyond  measure  ;  the  Queen 
was  ill  and  cross,  the  Princesses  low,  depressed,  and  quite 
sinking  under  it ;  and  that  unless  means  could  be  found 
to  place  some  very  strong-minded  and  temperate  person 
about  the  King,  he  would  either  commit  some  extrava- 
gance, or  would  by  violent  exercise  and  carelessness  in- 
jure his  health  and  bring  on  a  deadly  illness.  .  .  .  She 
said  that  Smart,  when  alive,  had  some  authority  over 
him ;  that  John  Willis  also  had  acquired  it,  but  in  a 
different  way.  The  first  obtained  it  from  regard  and 
high  opinion,  the  other  from  fear ;  that,  as  was  always 
the  case,  cunning  and  art  kept  pace,  in  the  King's  char- 
acter, with  his  suspicion  and  misgivings,  and  that  he 
was  become  so  very  acute  that  nothing  escaped  him."1 

Even  so  late  as  September  11th,  Lord  Auckland  says, 
he  was  much  dissatisfied  with  the  Queen,  and  that  in 
the  large  house  to  which  he  is  to  return,  he  is  to  have  a 
range  of  apartments  wholly  separate  from  hers.2 

The  general  impression  at  the  time  was,  that  in  both 
these  attacks  the  King  was  deprived  of  his  reason  for  a 
short  period  only ;  and  Parliament  was  readily  satisfied 
by  the  declarations  of  ministers  that  there  was  no  neces- 
sary suspension  of  the  royal  functions.    Before  the  ques- 

1  Malmesburj,  iv.  326. 

2  Journal  and  Correspondence,  ii.  213. 


464         INSANITY    OF    KING   GEOEGE    THE   THIED. 

tion  of  a  regency  could  be  fairly  started,  the  bulletins 
ceased,  and  he  was  supposed  to  have  recovered.  Of 
course  there  was  no  examination  of  the  physicians,  and 
the  public  had  no  means  of  learning  the  subsequent  prog- 
ress of  the  disorder,  because  they  alone  to  whom  the 
facts  were  known  were  most  interested  in  saying  nothing 
about  them.  That  the  ministry  were  playing  a  very 
bold  game  seems  to  have  been  more  than  suspected  by 
one  of  themselves.  In  1804,  Mr.  Rose  says,  "  How  Mr. 
Pitt  can  carry  on  the  government  if  the  King  is  to  be 
in  the  hands  of  his  physicians,  I  cannot  discover."1  It 
was  not  until  the  examination  of  the  physicians  relative 
to  the  next  attack  (1810),  some  of  whom  had  also 
attended  him  in  1801  and  1804,  that  the  true  state  of 
the  case  was  revealed.2  It  then  came  out  for  the  first 
time  that  both  these  attacks  were  of  much  longer  dura- 
tion and  greater  severity  than  the  public  had  been  led 
to  suppose  ;  that  about  the  middle  of  March,  1801,  and 
after  the  bulletins  ceased,  a  relapse  took  place ;  that  in 
1804  Dr.  Simmons  continued  in  the  palace  as  late  as 
June  ;  and  that  either  Heberden  or  Sir  Francis  Millman 
attended  the  King  up  to  October.3  And  yet  it  had  be- 
come a  matter  of  history  that,  during  those  very  periods 
when  his  Majesty  was  in  charge  of  medical  men  on  ac 
count  of  mental  disorder,  he  was  exercising  the  highest 

1  Diaries,  &c,  ii.  149. 

-  It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  memoranda  showing  the  progress 
of  the  disease,  which  we  have  given,  were  mostly  published  only  a  few 
years  ago,  so  that,  in  fact,  the  whole  state  of  the  case  was  not  generally 
known  until  long  after  the  examination  of  the  physicians  in  1811. 

3  Indeed,  as  late  as  December  the  King  had  not  entirely  regained  the 
confidence  of  his  family.  Lord  Malmesbury  says  (iv.  344),  on  the 
authority  of  one  of  the  court,  "  The  Queen  will  never  receive  the  King 
without  one  of  the  Princesses  being  present ;  never  says  in  reply  a  word ; 
piques  herself  on  this  discreet  silence ;  and,  when  in  London,  locks  the 
door  of  her  white  room  (her  boudoir)  against  him." 


INSAMTY   OF   KING   GEORGE   THE   THIED.         465 

functions  of  sovereignty.  On  the  14th  and  17th  of  March, 
1801.  —  which,  as  we  have  just  seen,  was  only  fifteen 
days  subsequent  to  the  date  of  a  "  severe  paroxysm," 
—  measures  of  vital  interest  and  importance  to  the 
country  received  his  assent  and  concurrence.  On  the 
14th  Pitt?s  resignation  was  accepted,  and  the  new  min- 
isters received  their  commission.  On  the  17th  the  King 
presided  at  a  council.  On  the  9th  of  March,  1804,  a 
commission  under  the  King's  sign-manual  was  passed, 
by  virtue  of  which  fifteen  bills  received  the  royal  assent, 
and  on  the  23d  his  assent  was  given  to  many  other 
bills. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  the  discovery  of  his  real  men- 
tal condition,  half  a  dozen  years  afterwards,  excited  both 
astonishment  and  indignation.  In  Parliament,  the  con- 
duct of  Lord  Eldon,  who,  in  consequence  of  his  office  as 
Lord  Chancellor  and  of  his  intimate  personal  relations  to 
the  King,  was  held  responsible  for  these  transactions, 
was  condemned  in  the  strongest  terms.  Earl  Grey 
charged  him  with  having  done  what  was  equivalent  to 
treason.  "  What,"  said  he,  "  would  be  the  character, 
what  the  appropriate  punishment  of  his  offence,  who, 
knowing  his  Sovereign  to  be  actually  at  the  time  incom- 
petent,—  who,  in  the  full  conviction  of  his  notorious  and 
avowed  incapacity,  and  whilst  he  was  under  medical  care 
and  personal  restraint,  should  come  here,  and  in  the  name 
and  under  the  pretext  of  his  Majesty's  commands,  put  the 
royal  seal  to  acts  which  could  not  be  legal  without 
his  Majesty's  full  and  complete  acquiescence  ? "  .  .  . 
"  I  will  ask  the  noble  lord,"  he  continued,  in  another 
part  of  his  speech,  "  what  he  would  have  done  had  a 
case  of  a  similar  nature  come  before  him  in  Chancery  ? 
I  will  suppose  such  a  case  ;  and  that  in  the  interval, 
when  it  appeared  from  the  testimony  of  physicians  that 

30 


466          INSANITY   OF   KING   GEORGE    THE   THIRD. 

the  unfortunate  individual  was  incapable  of  exercising 
bis  mental  faculties,  a  person  had  prevailed  on  an  attor- 
ney to  make  a  will  for  him,  would  the  noble  lord  have 
given  his  sanction  to  such  a  proceeding  ?  Would  he 
have  taken  the  opinion  of  the  interested  individuals  in 
preference  to  that  of  the  physician  ?  Let  the  noble  lord 
apply  this  case  to  himself.  I  say  that  his  Majesty's  name 
has  been  abused.  The  noble  lord  has  said,  on  his  own 
authority,  that  his  Majesty  was  not  then  incapacitated 
from  acting ;  but  will  your  lordships  allow  yourselves 
to  believe  that  his  Majesty's  health  was  then  such  as  to  ad- 
mit him  to  act  in  his  royal  capacity,  upon  an  authority 
which  contradicts  that  of  his  physicians  ?  " 

In  his  defence  Lord  Eldon  declared  that,  on  the  27th 
of  February,  and  again  on  the  9th  of  March,  1804,  the 
King's  physicians  had  pronounced  him  competent  to  per- 
form a  certain  act ;  or,  as  the  matter  was  described  more 
particularly  in  his  Memoirs,  he  inquired  of  the  physicians 
if,  in  their  opinion,  the  King  was  competent  to  sign  an  in- 
strument, provided  he  (Lord  Eldon)  had  satisfied  himself 
that  the  King  understood  its  effect.  To  this  query  Sir 
Lucas  Pepys  and  Dr.  Simmons  replied  affirmatively,  the 
other  physicians  being  supposed  to  concur.  Chiefly, 
however,  he  grounded  his  defence  on  the  right  to  judge 
for  himself  respecting  the  King's  mental  condition,  irre- 
spective of  medical  opinions.  "  I  have  been  significantly 
asked,"  said  he,  "  if  I  would  supersede  a  commission  of 
lunac}'  against  the  opinion  of  physicians.  I  have  often 
done  so.  The  opinions  of  physicians,  though  entitled 
to  great  attention,  were  not  to  bind  him  absolutely. 
...  It  was  most  important  to  the  Sovereign  that  the 
Chancellor  should  not  depend  wholly  on  the  evidence 
of  the  physicians,  if  he  himself  thought  the  King  per- 
fectly competent  to  discharge  the  functions  of  the  royal 


INSANITY   OF   KING   GEORGE   THE    THIRD.         467 

authority."  1  In  a  letter  to  Perceval,  he  declares  that  if 
the  King  had  been  found  to  understand  the  nature  of 
the  act  he  was  asked  to  perform,  he  should  have  been 
bound  by  his  sense  of  right  and  duty  to  have  sanctioned 
such  act,  though  he  might  have  believed,  with  his  phy- 
sicians, that  some  delusions  might  occur  an  hour  after- 
wards.2 

Eldon  declared  in  the  debate  that,  on  the  9th  of  March, 
1804,  the  King  understood  the  duty  he  had  to  perform 
better  than  he  did  himself,  and  among  his  papers  was 
found  what  he  regarded  as  a  conclusive  proof  of  his 
opinion.  "  On  applying  to  the  King,"  he  says,  "  to  ob- 
tain his  sign-manual  to  several  bills,  he  (Eldon)  began 
to  read  an  abstract  of  the  bills  with  more  of  detail  than 
usual,  when  the  King  said,  '  My  lord,  you  are  cautious.' 
He  (Eldon)  begged  it  might  be  so,  under  existing  cir- 
cumstances. '  Oh/  said  the  King,  '  you  are  certainly 
right  in  that ;  but  you  should  be  correct  as  well  as  cau- 
tious.' Eldon  replied  he  was  not  conscious  that  he  was 
incorrect.  l  No,'  said  he,  '  you  are  not ;  for  if  you  will 
look  into  the  commission  you  have  brought  me  to  sign, 
you  will  see  that  I  there  state  that  I  have  fully  con- 
sidered the  bills  proposed  to  receive  my  sign-manual. 
To  be  correct,  therefore,  I  should  have  the  bills  to  peruse 
and  consider.'  I  stated  to  him  that  he  had  never  had 
the  bills  whilst  I  had  been  Chancellor,  and  that  I  did  not 
know  that  he  had  ever  had  the  bills.  He  said  during  a 
part  of  his  reign  he  had  always  had  them,  until  Lord 
Thurlow  had  ceased  to  bring  them ;  and  the  expression 
his  Majesty  used  was,  Lord  Thurlow  said  it  was  nonsense 
his  giving  himself  the  trouble  to  read  them." 3 

Lord  Eldon,  as  well  as  the  physicians,  made  the  com- 

1  Stockdale's  Parliamentary  Register,  1811,  i. 

2  Twiss,  i.  356.  3  idem,  i.  226. 


468         INSANITY   OF   KING   GEORGE   THE    THIRD. 

mon  mistake  of  confounding  the  power  to  understand  the 
exact  terms  of  a  transaction  with  that  of  perceiving  all 
its  relations  and  consequences.  Such  a  mistake,  natural 
enough  as  it  might  have  been  to  him,  could  hardly  have 
been  expected  from  the  physicians,  especially  under  cir- 
cumstances so  peculiar  and  important.  It  would  be  con- 
sidered a  bold  assertion,  that  a  person,  regarded  by  his 
family  and  physicians  as  insane,  was  perfectly  competent 
to  make  a  contract  or  execute  a  will ;  but  to  declare  that 
the  King,  who  by  their  own  admission  was  more  or  less 
insane,  was  nevertheless  competent  to  exercise  the  most 
important  functions  of  his  office,  was,  to  say  the  least  of 
it,  to  assume  a  tremendous  responsibility.  But  they 
knew  very  well  the  wishes  of  the  court  on  the  subject ; 
and  it  could  hardly  have  been  expected  of  court  physi- 
cians that  they  would  be  over  scrupulous  on  such  an 
occasion,  especially  as  they  were  aware,  no  doubt,  that 
the  measures  in  question  were  proper  enough  in  them- 
selves, and  the  royal  assent  was  merely  a  matter  of  form. 
This  unquestionably  was  the  real  ground  on  which 
Eldon  acted,  though  it  did  not  furnish  the  kind  of  de- 
fence exactly  which  he  was  disposed  to  set  up.  The 
nation  was  at  war ;  a  change  of  ministry  was  in  prog- 
ress, both  in  1801  and  1804  ;  a  project  of  a  regency 
would  have  distracted  the  national  councils  and  impaired 
the  national  vigor ;  and  the  disease,  scarcely  severe 
at  any  time,  seemed  likely  to  be  of  very  short  dura- 
tion. A  man  much  less  devoted  to  political  ends  than 
Eldon  might,  under  such  circumstances,  have  considered 
it  perfectly  justifiable  to  avoid  the  real  evils  of  a  regency 
question  by  allowing  one  more  theoretical  than  prac- 
tical, and  followed  by  salutary  consequences.  In  fact, 
the  same  thing  was  done  by  Lord  Loughborough,  who 
went  to  his  Majesty  on  the  24th  of  February,  1801, — 


INSANITY   OF  KING    GEORGE   THE    THIRD.         469 

AddiDgton  having  declined  the  service, —  and  obtained 
his  signature  to  a  commission  for  giving  the  royal  assent 
to  the  Brown  Bread  Bill,1  the  bill  being  actually  taken 
to  the  King  by  Dr.  Willis,  and  signed  in  his  presence 
only.* 

There  was  another  charge  against  Lord  Eldon,  which 
cannot  be  so  easily  parried.  It  was  insinuated  by  Earl 
Grey,  in  the  debate  already  alluded  to,  that  he  used  the 
facilities  of  his  position  to  prevent  a  junction  between 
Fox  and  Pitt  in  1804;  and  it  appears,  from  his  own 
papers,  that  he  used  similar  means  to  accomplish  the 
removal  of  Addington,  his  own  colleague,  and  bring  in 
Pitt.  These  might  have  been  precisely  the  arrange- 
ments which  the  King  would  have  favored,  had  his  mind 
been  perfectly  sound  ;  but  no  man  could  have  promoted 
them  as  Eldon  did,  without  forfeiting  every  claim  to  up- 
right and  honorable  conduct.3 

About  the  25th  of  October,  1810,  the  King  was  again, 
and  for  the  last  time,  smitten  by  mental  disease,  conse- 
quent, it  was  generally  supposed,  upon  the  fatal  illness 
of  a  favorite  daughter,  the  Princess  Amelia.  It  was 
first  indicated  by  unusual  hurry  and  restlessness  of  man- 
ner, by  indiscreet  talking,  addressing  unseemly  language 
to  the  Princesses,  giving  away  valuable  articles,  such 
as  gems,  and  turning  away  his  servants  capriciously.4 


1  Life  of  Lord  Sidmouth,  i.  302.  2  Rose,  i.  311. 

3  True,  Eldon  pronounced  the  charge  that  he  had  taken  advantage  of 
the  King's  weakness  to  prejudice  him  against  Mr.  Fox  to  be  a  direct  false- 
hood. His  biographer  candidly  remarks,  that  "this  denial  must  not  be 
extended  beyond  the  charge  it  was  meant  to  meet,  of  having  taken  ad- 
vantage of  the  King's  weak  state  to  excite  a  prejudice  against  Fox  in  the 
royal  mind,"  —  meaning,  probably,  that,  as  he  did  not  believe  the  King 
to  be  incompetent,  he  might  safely  deny  that  he  took  any  advantage  of 
his  weakness.     (Twiss,  i.  356.) 

4  Rose,  ii.  248. 


470         INSANITY   OF   KING   GEOEGE   THE   THIED. 

Within  a  few  days  he  was  in  a  state  of  extreme  ex- 
citement, attended  by  high  fever  and  great  loss  of  sleep. 
During  the  first  six  or  eight  months,  the  disorder  was 
characterized  by  paroxysms  of  this  kind,  alternating 
with  intervals  when  he  was  free  from  fever,  calm,  and 
quite  rational  in  his  conversation.  At  times  he  was  ex- 
tremely violent ;  and  on  one  occasion,  7th  of  November, 
1810,  they  were  obliged  to  close  the  doors  and  windows, 
and  finally  the  apothecary  of  St.  Luke's  came  over  with 
some  of  his  attendants  and  applied  restraint.1  Four 
days  after,  he  came  to  himself,  asked  how  long  he  had 
been  confined,  and  when  told,  he  said  he  had  no  recol- 
lection of  the  time,  and  that  this  was  the  fourth  blank  in 
his  life.2  Up  to  the  17th  of  this  month,  he  continued 
to  improve  ;  but  on  that  day  he  undertook  the  task  of 
dismissing  and  remunerating  all  the  persons  employed 
in  the  Princess  Amelia's  establishment,  —  a  task  in 
which  he  puzzled  himself  at  last,  and  which  he  was 
obliged  to  leave  unfinished.3  This  was  followed  by  a 
paroxysm  of  excitement,  which,  however,  soon  subsided, 
for  on  the  4th  and  5th  of  December  he  is  said  to  be 
"  surprisingly  well."  On  the  6th  he  became  excited,4  but 
towards  the  middle  of  the  month  he  began  again  to  im- 
prove, and  on  the  17th  of  January  he  walked  out  on  the 
terrace,  for  the  first  time.5  On  the  26th,  Eldon  and  Per- 
ceval spent  an  hour  and  twenty  minutes  with  him,  con- 
versing on  private  and  domestic  affairs.  Referring  to 
this  interview,  the  former  said :  "  He  is  not  well,  and  I 
fear  he  requires  time.  In  the  midst  of  this  state,  it  is 
impossible  to  conceive  how  right,  how  pious,  how  relig- 
ious, how  everything  that  he  should  be,  he  is,  with  the 

1  Colchester,  ii.  288.  2  Rose,  ii.  445. 

3  Colchester,  ii.  291.  4  idem,  ii.  288. 

5  Idem,  ii.  308. 


INSANITY    OF    KING    GEOEGE    THE    THIRD.         471 

distressing  aberrations  I  allude  to."  1  Perceval  met  him 
again  three  days  afterwards,  and  it  was  said  that  "  for 
the  first  half  hour  of  their  conversation  nobody  would 
have  supposed  from  the  King's  manner  that  he  had  been 
indisposed  at  all."2  When  in  a  passion,  it  appears  that 
he  spoke  in  Latin,  as  was  the  case  in  a  former  attack. 

From  this  time  forth  till  July,  there  occurred  no 
marked  change  for  better  or  worse  in  his  Majesty's  dis- 
order. He  was  more  or  less  excited,  and  entertained 
various  delusions  ;  but  he  was  fond  of  conversing  on  pub- 
lic and  domestic  affairs,  and  it  was  supposed  that  what 
he  heard  did  not  tend  to  hasten  convalescence.  He 
became  impatient  of  restraint  and  importunate  to  be 
restored  to  his  royal  state.  He  had  fixed  on  May  as  the 
period  for  resuming  the  royal  functions,  but  before  that 
time  came  he  insisted  on  immediate  resumption.3  The 
Queen,  in  a  note  to  Lord  Eldon,  soliciting  the  attendance 
of  one  of  the  council  at  Windsor,  at  least  once  a  week, 
says:  "  The  King  is  constantly  asking  if  not  one  of  the 
council  is  coming  to  receive  the  reportof  the  physicians, 
and  seems  to  feel  that  putting  it  off  procrastinates  his  re- 
covery, as  his  Majesty  {she  is  sorry  to  say)  thinks  himself 
too  near  that  period."  *  Lord  Ellenborough,  under  date  of 
April  3d,  speaks  of  the  King's  "  delusions  and  irregulari- 
ties and  extravagances  of  plans  and  projects  of  which 
we  hear  daily."  5  On  the  25th  of  May,  the  Duke  of  York 
had  an  interview  with  him,  in  which  his  mental  condition 
was  pretty  fairly  exhibited.  "  He  appeared  at  first  very 
much  affected  at  seeing  me,  and  expressed  himself  in  the 
kindest  and  most  affectionate  manner  upon  my  reap- 
pointment to  the  chief  command  of  the  army,  but  soon 

i  Twiss,  i.  359.  2  Colchester,  ii.  314. 

3  Buckingham,  Memoirs  of  the  Court  of  England,  i.  57. 
*  Twiss,  i.  363.  5  Idem,  i.  363. 


472  INSANITY   OF   KING   GEORGE   THE   THIRD. 

flew  off  from  that  subject,  and  then  ran  on,  in  perfect 
good  humor,  but  Avith  the  greatest  rapidity,  and  with 
little  or  no  connection,  upon  the  most  trifling  topics,  at 
times  hinting  at  some  of  the  subjects  of  his  delusion,  in 
spite  of  all  our  endeavors  to  change  the  conversation."1 
Dr.  Robert  Willis,  one  of  the  King's  physicians,  ex- 
pressed to  the  Duke  his  alarm  at  this  "  frivolity,  or 
rather  imbecility  of  mind.'7 

Occasionally  during  this  spring,  he  was  quite  con- 
scious of  his  condition,  and  once,  at  least,  manifested  this 
consciousness  in  a  curious  manner.  Francis  Horner,  in 
a  letter  to  his  father,  mentions  that  at  a  concert  of 
ancient  music  the  King  himself  made  the  selection. 
"  This,"  he  says,  "  consisted  of  all  the  finest  passages  to 
be  found  in  Handel,  descriptive  of  madness  and  blind- 
ness :  particularly  those  in  the  opera  of  Samson  ;  there 
was  one  also  upon  madness  from  love,  and  the  lamen- 
tation of  Jephtha  upon  the  loss  of  his  daughter,  and  it 
closed  with  '  God  save  the  King,'  to  make  sure  the  ap- 
plication of  all  that  went  before."2 

About  the  middle  of  July,  1811,  the  disease  took  an 
unfavorable  turn,  and  from  that  time  forth  only  the  worst 
event  was  expected.  In  October,  his  bodily  health  had 
considerably  declined,  and  at  times  he  became  more 
violent  than  ever.  In  November  his  reasoning  faculties 
"  were  quite  gone,"  writes  Lord  Colchester  in  his  diary. 
From  those  who,  in  one  way  or  another,  were  con- 
nected with  the  court,  we  learn  something  respecting 
the  King's  delusions.  Once,  in  January,  he  refused  food, 
apprehending  that  they  wanted  to  poison  him.3  One 
very  persistent  notion  was,  that  he  was  married  to  Lady 

i  Twiss,  i.  363. 

2  Memoirs  and  Correspondence,  ii.  70. 

3  Colchester,  ii.  356. 


INSANITY    OF   KING   GEORGE    THE    THIED.         473 

Pembroke,  with  whom  he  was  enamoured  before  his 
actual  marriage.  "  They  refuse  to  let  me  go  to  Lady 
Pembroke/'  he  complained  to  one  of  his  sons,  "  though 
everybody  knows  I  am  married  to  her;  but  what  is  worst 
of  ail  is,  that  infamous  scoundrel,  Halford  (Sir  Henry), 
was  by  at  the  marriage  and  now  has  the  effrontery  to 
deny  it  to  my  face." x  Another  of  his  notions  was  that 
all  marriages  were  dissolved  by  act  of  Parliament.  He 
thought  he  was  Elector  of  Hanover,  and  was  much  exer- 
cised as  to  what  was  to  be  done  about  Hanover.2  In 
July  he  sometimes  talked  as  if  he  were  conversing  with 
persons  long  since  dead,  such  as  PercevaPs  father,  or 
some  old  Hanoverian  minister ;  and  sometimes  also,  con- 
cerning himself,  as  an  antediluvian  to  be  shut  up  in 
Noah's  ark.  The  last  notion  was  expressed  during  one 
of  his  former  attacks.3  Another  strange  fancy  is  men- 
tioned by  Lord  Eldon.  "  It  was  agreed,"  he  says,  "  that 
if  any  strong  feature  of  the  King's  malady  appeared  dur- 
ing the  presence  of  the  council,  Sir  Henry  Halford 
should,  on  receiving  a  signal  from  me,  endeavor  to  recall 
him  from  his  aberrations ;  and  accordingly,  when  his 
Majesty  appeared  to  be  addressing  himself  to  two  of  the 
persons  whom  he  most  favored  in  his  early  life,  long 
dead,  Sir  Henry  observed,  '  Your  Majesty  has,  I  believe, 

forgotten  that  that and both  died  many  years  ago.' 

1  True,'  was  the  reply,  l  died  to  you  and  to  the  world  in 
general,  but  not  to  me.  You,  Sir  Henry,  are  forgetting 
that  I  have  the  power  of  holding  intercourse  with  those 
whom  you  call  dead.  Yes,  Sir  Henry,'  continued  he, 
assuming  a  lighter  manner,  '  it  is  in  vain,  so  far  as  I  am 
concerned,  that  you  kill  your  patients.  Yes,  Dr.  Baillie, 
—  but,  Baillie,  Baillie,'  pursued  he  with  resumed  grav- 

1  Buckingham,  i.  50.  2  Colchester,  ii.  303. 

3  Idem,  ii.  343. 


474          INSANITY   OF   KING   GEOEGE   THE    THIED. 

ity,  '  I  don't  know.  He  is  an  anatomist :  he  dissects  his 
patients  ;  and  then  it  would  not  be  a  resuscitation  merely, 
but  a  re-creation,  and  that,  I  think,  is  beyond  my 
power.'  "  1  The  Princess  Amelia  he  imagined  to  be  still 
alive  and  residing  in  Germany,  where  she  would  never 
grow  old ;  and  he  urged  one  of  his  physicians  who  had 
lost  his  wife  to  believe  that  she  had  met  a  similar  fate.2 
At  a  later  period  (1813),  he  believed  he  was  surrounded 
by  angels,  wTith  whom  he  conversed.3 

In  this  attack,  the  physicians  first  employed  were 
Heberden,  Baillie,  and  Halford :  Reynolds  and  Robert 
Darling  Willis  were  added  to  the  medical  staff  in  the 
early  part  of  November.  In  the  course  of  a  fortnight, 
Simmons  was  called  in  ;  but  as  the  family  were  unwilling 
to  comply  with  his  wishes  in  regard  to  the  management, 
he  did  not  attend.4  These  physicians  were  all  examined 
by  a  committee  of  the  Commons  on  the  14th  of  Decem- 
ber, and  by  a  committee  of  the  Lords  about  the  same 
time.  The  questions  propounded  were  precisely  the 
same  as  those  of  1788;  and  the  replies  were  of  a  very 
similar  character.  They  all  concurred  in  the  opinion 
that  the  disease  would  ultimately  yield,  but  no  one  un- 
dertook to  set  limits  to  its  duration.  The  same  reasons, 
too,  were  also  given  for  this  favorable  prognosis,  —  the 
patient's  previous  good  habits  and  firm  health,  the  sud- 
denness of  the  attack,  and  the  general  curability  of  the 
disease.  To  the  question,  whether  his  Majesty's  age, 
then  seventy-two  years,  was  not  an  unfavorable  circum- 
stance, the  unanimous  answer  was,  that,  as  a  general 
rule,  extreme  age  was  an  unfavorable  circumstance,  in 

1  Campbell's  Lives  of  the  Lord  Chancellors,  Art.  Eldon. 

2  Autobiography  of  Cornelia  Knight,  i.  179. 

3  Madame  D'Arblay's  Memoirs  (Letter  in  1811). 

4  Rose,  ii.  453. 


INSANITY   OF   KING   GEORGE   THE   THIRD.         475 

mental  as  well  as  other  disease ;  but,  in  the  present 
case,  it  would  probably  have  little  influence  upon  the 
result,  because  the  King  had  borne  his  ago  remarkably- 
well,  and  the  attack  had  originated  in  circumstances 
independent  of  any  bodily  indisposition.  To  the  ques- 
tion, whether  the  King's  very  defective  sight  —  for  he 
had  become  almost,  and  soon  after,  entirely  blind  — 
might  not  operate  unfavorably,  the  reply  was,  substan- 
tially, that,  in  the  early  stages  of  the  disorder,  it  would 
be  more  likely  to  have  a  beneficial  effect  than  otherwise, 
by  keeping  from  him  many  sources  of  irritation ;  while, 
in  the  later  stages,  it  might,  by  diminishing  his  means 
and  opportunities  of  occupation,  retard  his  recovery. 
To  the  question,  whether  the  fact  of  his  having  had  so 
many  previous  attacks  was  not  an  unfavorable  circum- 
stance, Reynolds  and  Baillie  replied  —  to  them  only  was 
the  question  put  —  that  his  having  recovered  from  so 
many  previous  attacks  furnished  strong  grounds  for 
expecting  recovery  again.  Baillie,  however,  qualified 
his  opinion  by  the  suggestion  that  the  susceptibility  to 
disease  might  be  increased  by  its  frequent  recurrence, 
and  thus  prove  an  obstacle  to  recovery. 

In  regard  to  the  form  of  disease,  Willis  and  Heberden 
set  up  some  distinctions  between  delirium  and  insanity 
that  seem  more  fanciful  than  real  under  the  light  of  our 
better  knowledge  of  the  disease.  The  former  said  the 
King's  disorder-  was  more  allied  to  delirium  than  in- 
sanity. "  Taking  these  two  points  as  extreme  points," 
he  said,  "  derangement  will  lie  somewhere  betwixt  them. 
The  derangement  which  is  the  object  of  this  inquiry  I 
consider  as  partaking  of  delirium,  but  never  of  insan- 
ity." Heberden  said :  "  It  is  not  merely  the  delirium  of 
fever,  nor  is  it  any  common  case  of  insanity.  It  is  de- 
rangement attended  with  more  or  less  fever,  and  liable 


476          INSANITY   OF   KING   GEORGE   THE   THIRD. 

to  accessions  and  remissions."  They  sought  no  doubt  to 
give  the  impression  that  it  was  simply  a  case  of  delir- 
ious wandering  produced  by  bodily  disturbance,  which 
would  readily  pass  away  with  the  condition  on  which  it 
depended.  It  is  impossible  to  see  any  ground  for  this 
opinion.  This  attack  closely  resembled  the  others.  It 
was  manifested  by  hurry,  restlessness,  caprices,  indis- 
cretions, violence,  and  delusions.  In  one  word,  it  pre- 
sented all  the  characters  of  ordinary  acute  mania.  It 
should  be  remarked,  however,  in  this  connection,  that 
some  of  the  writers  on  insanity  of  that  period  divided 
what  we  call  mania  into  two  classes, —  viz.,  derangement 
of  mind  and  insanity.  The  first  would  now  be  called 
acute  mania,  or  acute  delirious  mania,  and  the  other 
chronic  mania.  This  no  doubt  led  to  Heberden's  dis- 
tinction, though  it  certainly  was  not  well  made  in  the 
case  of  the  King.1 

Dr.  Simmons  and  Dr.  John  Willis,  who  had  both 
attended  the  King  in  former  attacks,  had  not  been 
employed  in  this,  the  Queen  fearing  it  might  awaken 
disagreeable  emotions.  In  fact,  she  had  promised  him 
that  neither  of  them  should  have  charge  of  him  again.2 
A  year  having  passed  and  brought  no  improvement, 
Simmons  and  Munroe,  physician  of  Bethlehem,  were 
joined  to  the  medical  corps  on  the  9th  of  October. 

Towards  the  middle  of  January,  1812,  the  physicians 
were  again  examined  by  committees  of  the  Lords  and  of 
the  Commons.  From  this  examination  we  gather  that 
during  the  months  of  April,  May,  and  June,  the  King 
was  apparently  improving.  About  the  middle  of  July 
he  became  much  worse,  the  disease  being  attended  by 

1  The  Report  may  be  found  in  Stockdale's  Parliamentary  Register, 
1810,  and  Hansard's  Parliamentary  Debates,  first  series,  v.,  xix. 

2  liuek    gham,  i.  133. 


INSANITY   OF   KING    GEOEGE   THE    THIED.         477 

increased  excitement  and  stronger  delusions.  His  sight 
and  hearing  were  quite  gone,  but  the  other  senses  were 
as  acute  as  ever.  He  retained  a  consciousness  of  his 
regal  state;  and  during  the  latter  part  of  the  year,  when 
there  seemed  to  be  a  little  improvement,  he  bore  his 
part  in  conversation  very  correctly  for  a  few  minutes, 
and  related  anecdotes  of  the  past.  The  physicians  were 
all  as  confident  in  the  opinion  that  his  recovery,  though 
not  hopeless,  was  highly  improbable,  as  they  were  the  year 
before  in  the  opinion  that  he  would  recover.  This  change 
in  their  prognosis  they  attributed  chiefly  to  the  change 
in  the  phasis  of  the  disorder,  which  occurred  in  July.1 

The  very  confident  expectation  of  recovery  expressed 
by  the  physicians  during  the  first  few  months  was  hardly 
warranted  either  by  the  circumstances  of  the  case  or  the 
nature  of  insanity.  He  must  be  a  bold  man  who  would 
predict  recovery  in  any  case  as  strongly  as  it  was  pre- 
dicted here  of  this  old  man,  whose  nervous  system  had 
been  already  tried  by  repeated  attacks  of  mental  disease. 
Physicians  who  have  but  a  casual  acquaintance  with  in- 
sanity are  apt  to  be  more  sanguine  in  their  prognosis 
than  those  who  have  been  specially  conversant  with  the 
disease.  The  latter  are  so  accustomed  to  see  the  most 
favorable  indications  during  the  early  stage  followed 
by  renewed  excitement  and  unalterable  derangement, 
that  the)7  learn  to  distrust  the  permanence  of  any  im- 
provement at  that  period. 

There  are  many  points  in  regard  to  the  delusions, 
management,  and  medical  treatment,  of  great  interest  to 
the  professional  reader,  not  touched  upon  at  all  in  the 
examinations  of  the  physicians.  From  other  sources  we 
learn  that  restraint  was  applied  to  the  person,  and  this 
probably  is  what  is  meant  by  some  obscure  allusions  in 

1  Hansard,  xxi.  73. 


478         INSANITY   OF   KING   GEORGE   THE   THIRD. 

the  examination  to  a  change  of  management.  The  fact 
is  not  calculated  to  strengthen  the  doctrine  of  absolute 
non-restraint,  which  is  now  put  forth  as  the  sign  and 
seal  of  a  signal  advance  in  the  treatment  of  the  insane. 
Plenty  of  attendants  and  careful  supervision  are  all  that 
is  needed,  we  are  told,  to  enable  us  to  dispense  entirely 
with  restraint.  It  cannot  be  supposed  that  any  such 
means  were  lacking  in  the  case  of  a  monarch  on  whose 
realms  the  sun  never  set.  Starting,  as  the  family  and 
the  physicians  did,  with  the  determination  not  to  employ 
restraint  if  it  could  be  possibly  avoided,1  the  event 
showed  that  leather  and  canvas  were  found  at  last  to  be 
preferable  to  the  hands  and  arms  of  attendants. 

The  examination  of  the  physicians  discloses  nothing 
respecting  the  medical  treatment.  From  other  sources 
we  learn  that,  objecting  to  be  bled,  he  was  leeched,  which 
led  Sir  Everard  Home  to  say,  in  the  spirit  of  a  pathology 
rather  prevalent  at  that  time,  that  he  would  have  bled 
him  till  he  fainted.2 

The  annoyance  produced  by  the  visit  of  so  many  phy- 
sicians together,  and  which  was  so  much  complained  of 
by  Willis  in  the  illness  of  1788,  was  so  obvious,  that  it 
was  concluded  to  be  best  for  the  physicians  to  see  him 
singly.3 

Bulletins,  necessarily  general  and  vague,  were  issued 
twice  a  day  in  the  earliest  stage  of  the  attack,  as  well 
as  private  advice  for  the  eyes  of  the  court  and  cabinet. 
These  two  sources  of  information  were  not  always  cal- 
culated to  convey  the  same  impression,  and  occasionally 
there  was  a  remarkable  discrepancy  between  their  re- 
spective statements.  How  untrustworthy  the  bulletins 
were,  the  public  learned  from  the  examination  of  the 

i  Colchester,  ii.  282.  2  Rose,  ii.  458. 

3  Colchester,  ii.  292. 


INSANITY    OF    KEVG   GEORGE    THE   THIRD.         479 

physicians,  by  which  it  appeared  that  for  a  day  or  two 
at  one  time,  in  the  attack  of  1801,  the  King  was  supposed 
to  be  so  very  dangerously  ill,  "  that  the  physicians  were 
in  great  despondency  and  alarm,"  while  the  bulletins 
represented  his  condition  as  very  favorable.1  The  fact 
was  noticed  in  Parliament  and  drew  out  some  severe 
rebukes. 

The  examination  was  chiefly  directed,  not  so  much  to 
the  present  condition  of  the  King  as  to  the  attacks  of 
1801  and  1804,  several  of  the  physicians  having  attended 
him  at  one  or  both  those  periods,  and  to  some  interviews 
between  the  King  and  his  ministers.  It  showed  the  usual 
amount  of  intrigue  and  cabal  on  the  part  of  the  King's 
friends,  with  subserviency  to  the  predominant  party  and 
disregard  of  each  other  on  the  part  of  the  physicians. 
As  in  the  illness  of  1788,  the  policy  of  the  Tories  was 
to  stave  off  the  regency  by  representing  the  attack  as 
speedily  curable,  while  the  Whigs  were  equally  strenu- 
ous in  precipitating  this  measure.  But  the  result  ap- 
peared so  doubtful,  and  the  exigencies  of  the  country 
were  so  pressing,  that  it  could  not  long  be  evaded ;  and 
accordingly  the  Prince  of  Wales  was  made  Regent  in 
February,  1811,  —  an  event  which  enabled  the  Whig 
party,  as  is  well  known  to  all  who  are  acquainted  with 
the  history  of  that  period,  to  verify  the  scriptural  decla- 
rations respecting  the  faithlessness  of  princes. 

The  following  account  of  the  King's  condition  subse- 
quent to  1812  is  given  by  an  anonymous  writer,  but  no 
authority  is  mentioned  for  the  statements  it  contains, 
and  I  have  been  unable  to  verify  them. 

"  At  intervals  he  still  took  a  lively  interest  in  politics. 
His  perception  was  good,  though  mixed  up  with  a  num- 
ber of  erroneous  ideas  ;  his  memory  was  tenacious,  but 

1  Rose,  i.  325. 


480  INSANITY   OF   KING   GEORGE   THE   THIRD. 

his  judgment  unsettled  ;  and  the  loss  of  royal  authority 
seemed  constantly  to  prey  upon  his  mind.  His  malady 
seemed  rather  to  increase  than  abate  up  to  the  year 
1814,  when  at  the  time  the  allied  sovereigns  arrived  in 
England  he  evinced  indications  of  returning  reason,  and 
was  made  acquainted  with  the  astonishing  events  which 
had  recently  occurred.  The  Queen  one  day  found  the 
afflicted  monarch  engaged  in  singing  a  hymn  and  ac- 
companying himself  on  the  harpsichord.  After  he  had 
concluded  the  hymn,  he  knelt  down,  prayed  for  his  family 
and  the  nation,  and  earnestly  supplicated  for  the  com- 
plete restoration  of  his  mental  powers.  He  then  burst 
into  tears,  and  his  reason  suddenly  left  him.  But  he 
afterwards  had  occasionally  lucid  moments.  One  morn- 
ing, hearing  a  bell  toll,  he  asked  who  was  dead.  '  Please 
your  Majesty,'  said  an  attendant,  '  Mrs.  S.'  '  Mrs.  S.,' 
rejoined  the  King,  '  she  was  a  linen-draper  at  the  corner 

of street,  and  brought  up  her  family  in  the  fear  of 

Gocl.  She  has  gone  to  heaven  :  I  hope  I  shall  soon  fol- 
low her.'  He  now  became  deaf,  imbibed  the  idea  that 
he  was  dead,  and  said,  '  I  must  have  a  suit  of  black,  in 
memory  of  George  the  Third,  for  whom  I  know  there  is 
a  general  mourning.'  In  1817  he  appeared  to  have  a 
faint  glimmering  of  reason  again.  His  sense  of  hearing 
returned  more  acute  than  ever,  and  he  could  distinguish 
persons  by  their  footsteps.  He  likewise  recollected  that 
he  had  made  a  memorandum  many  years  before,  and  it 
was  found  exactly  where  he  indicated.  After  1818  he 
occupied  a  long  suite  of  rooms,  in  which  were  placed 
several  pianos  and  harpsichords.  At  these  he  would 
frequently  stop  during  his  walk,  play  a  few  notes  from 
Handel,  and  then  stroll  on.  He  seemed  cheerful,  and 
would  sometimes  talk  aloud,  as  if  addressing  some  noble- 
man ;    but  his   discourse   bore    reference    only  to   past 


INSANITY   OF   KIXG   GEORGE   THE   THIRD.         481 

events;  for  he  had  no  knowledge  of  recent  circum- 
stances, either  political  or  domestic.  Towards  the  end 
of  1819  his  appetite  began  to  fail.  In  January,  1820,  it 
was  found  impossible  to  keep  him  warm ;  his  remaining 
teeth  dropped  out,  and  he  was  almost  reduced  to  a  skel- 
eton. On  the  27th  he  was  confined  wholly  to  his  bed, 
and  on  the  29th  of  January,  1820,  he  died,  aged  eighty- 
two  years."  l 

1  Georgian  Era,  i. 

It  is  a  curious  coincidence  that  this  monarch,  who  suffered  so  much  from 
mental  disease,  should  have  been  pursued,  as  if  by  a  kind  of  fatality,  by 
insane  people.  In  1786,  an  old  woman  (Margaret  Nicholson)  attempted 
to  stab  him  as  he  was  alighting  from  his  carriage ;  in  1790,  a  lieutenant 
of  the  army  (John  Frith)  threw  a  stone  at  him  through  the  window  of 
the  carriage  in  which  he  was  riding;  and  in  1800,  a  soldier  (James  Had- 
field)  shot  at  him  with  a  pistol  in  the  theatre.  Miss  Burney  says  that, 
during  his  illness  in  1788,  they  were  often  annoyed  by  insane  persons, 
who  contrived  to  elude  the  restrictions  of  the  palace  and  to  roam  over 
the  grounds.  The  persons  who  committed  the  first  two  assaults  were  so 
obviously  insane  that,  without  any  further  action,  the  Privy  Council  sent 
them  to  Bethlehem  Hospital.  Hadfield  was  brought  to  trial,  and,  it  being 
on  an  action  of  treason,  his  counsel  was  allowed  to  speak  in  his  defence ; 
for  until  quite  recently  this  privilege  was  never  permitted  in  criminal 
cases,  except  those  of  treason.  It  was  on  this  occasion  that  Erskine 
made  his  great  forensic  effort,  and  obtained  the  acquittal  of  his  client. 


31 


SHAKESPEARE'S   DELINEATIONS   OF 
INSANITY. 


[It  has  been  the  welcome  privilege  of  a  comparatively  recent 
period  to  recognize  the  extraordinary  merit  of  Shakespeare's  repre- 
sentations of  insanity.  To  the  critics  and  literary  men  of  an  earlier 
time,  the  phenomena  of  this  disease  were  as  little  known  as  the 
modern  theories  of  heat  or  electricity.  Dr.  Johnson  could  see  in  the 
madness  of  Hamlet  only  a  provocative  of  mirth  ;  and  even  Coleridge, 
profoundly  as  he  discoursed  on  the  various  springs  and  forms  of 
human  thought,  regarded  it  as  a  clever  sham,  used  for  the  purpose 
of  concealing  a  real  design.  And  so,  for  many  years,  one  of  the 
most  remarkable  manifestations  of  Shakespeare's  genius  was  but 
slightly  appreciated  by  his  most  intelligent  admirers. 

The  revolution  in  the  management  of  the  insane,  that  occurred 
towards  the  end  of  the  last  century,  produced  among  its  legitimate 
effects  a  better  knowledge  of  insanity,  that  became  visible  in  works 
of  literature  as  well  as  in  the  current  opinions  of  society.  Previously 
to  the  publication  of  the  following  paper,  the  "  mad  folk  "  of  Shake- 
speare had  been  but  little  regarded  from  a  pathological  point  of  view. 
In  a  series  of  papers  in  the  "London  Magazine,"  in  1824,  by  Mr. 
William  Farren,  then  an  actor  on  the  English  stage,  they  were,  for 
the  first  time,  severally  discussed  in  a  manner  that  evinced,  for  an 
unprofessional  man,  a  very  accurate  perception  of  the  workings  of 
the  disordered  mind.  The  insanity  of  Hamlet  he  regarded  as  real, 
not  feigned,  and  though  treating  it  like  a  critical  observer  of  men, 
rather  than  as  a  student  of  disease,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  his  view 
was  strongly  sustained.  In  1859,  Dr.  Bucknill,  now  one  of  the 
English  Chancery  Visitors  in  Lunacy,  published  a  volume,  entitled 
"The  Psychology  of  Shakespeare,"  consisting  of  an  elaborate  criti- 


Shakespeare's  delineations  of  insanity.    483 

cisni  on  the  insane  characters.  He  brought  to  his  task  a  practical 
knowledge  of  insanity  obtained  while  in  charge  of  a  large  hospital 
for  the  insane,  and  much  of  that  philosophical  sagacity  that  detects 
the  springs  of  human  conduct.  It  is  a  valuable  contribution  to 
Shakesperian  literature,  and  every  true  admirer  of  the  great  poet 
will  be  grateful  for  the  light  it  throws  on  the  characters  in  which 
mental  disease  was  a  controlling  element.  A  similar  attempt  in  the 
same  direction,  and  not  unworthy  to  be  named  in  connection  with  it, 
was  subsequently  made  by  our  countryman,  Dr.  Kellogg,  Assistant 
Physician  in  the  State  Hospital  for  the  Insane  at  Poughkeepsie,  and 
the  intelligent  reader  of  Shakespeare  will  be  well  rewarded  by  a  care- 
ful study  of  its  contents.  Preeminent  above  all  other  works  of  this 
description  is  a  little  volume  from  the  pen  of  the  late  Dr.  Conolly,  of 
England,  entitled  "Hamlet/1  in  which  he  proves  that  the  insanity 
of  the  Prince  is  not  feigned,  but  genuine,  by  tracing  its  manifesta- 
tions from  one  period  to  another,  and  showing  that  every  step  in  the 
progress  of  the  affection  represents  the  ordinary  course  of  the  disease, 
and  is  so  true  to  nature  as  to  banish  the  idea  of  simulation.  Hamlet's 
insanity,  he  thinks,  does  not  consist  of  a  few  freaks  ingeniously  as- 
sumed for  purposes  of  deception,  but  is  a  regular  case  of  mental 
disease  whose  manifestations  are  all  in  accordance  with  the  laws  of 
mental  pathology  and  the  normal  constitution  of  the  patient's  mind. 
And  so  clearly  and  forcibly  is  this  idea  developed,  that  the  author's 
conclusion  seems  to  be  as  irresistible  as  that  of  a  mathematical  demon- 
stration. But,  whether  convinced  or  not,  the  reader  willingly  yields 
to  the  charm  of  a  work  clothed  in  the  graces  of  a  finished  style  sel- 
dom surpassed  in  purity  and  elegance.] 


It  is  a  curious  fact  that  metaphysicians,  whose  special 
province  it  is  to  observe  and  analyze  the  mental  phe- 
nomena, have  shown  much  less  knowledge  of  mind  as 
affected  by  disease,  than  writers  of  poetry  and  romance 
whose  ideas  are  supposed  to  be  the  offspring  of  imagi- 
nation, rather  than  a  sober  observation  of  facts.  No  one 
would  look  into  Locke,  Kant,  or  Stewart,  to  find  any 
light  on  insanity ;  but  in  the  pages  of  Shakespeare  and 
Scott  are  delineations  of  this  disorder  that  may  be 
ranked    with    the    highest   triumphs  of  their  masterly 


484    Shakespeare's  delineations  of  insanity. 

genius.  The  cause  of  this  difference  is  obvious.  The 
one  looks  at  mind  in  the  abstract ;  the  other,  in  the  con- 
crete. The  former  seeks  for  its  laws  and  modes  of 
operation  exclusively  in  the  inmost  recesses  of  his  own 
being.  The  latter  is  more  curious  to  observe  the  work- 
ings of  minds  around  him,  and  none  of  them  are  deemed 
to  be  unworthy  of  attention,  even  though  controlled  by 
the  influence  of  disease. 

To  represent  a  character  whose  mind  has  been  blasted 
by  the  touch  of  disease,  but  still  retains  the  semblance 
of  its  former  integrity  as  well  as  its  power  to  awaken 
our  interest  and  sympathy,  has  not  unfrequently  been 
attempted,  but  seldom  so  successfully  as  to  satisfy  those 
who  are  professionally  acquainted  with  the  subject. 
That  knowledge  of  insanity  which  is  obtained  by  special 
study  of  its  phenomena  in  the  wards  of  a  hospital  is 
confined  to  medical  men,  and  is  used  for  scientific  rather 
than  literary  purposes.  The  opportunities  afforded  to 
the  poet  and  novelist  for  studying  this  disease  are  con- 
fined to  the  few  patients  that  meet  their  observation  in 
the  ordinary  walks  of  life,  and  most  of  whom  possess  an 
order  of  intellect  not  particularly  interesting  in  its  best 
estate.  With  the  aid  only  of  materials  thus  furnished, 
to  construct  a  character  which,  with  all  its  aberrations, 
shall  still  manifest,  in  a  certain  degree,  its  natural  con- 
sistency and  congruity,  the  insane  bearing  the  impress 
of  the  sane,  and  each  in  harmony  with  the  other,  —  like 
the  needle  retaining  its  polarity  amid  all  its  variations, 
—  this  is  the  work  of  the  master  mind. 

Such  a  mind  was  Shakespeare's  ;  and  it  is  because  he 
clearly  perceived  at  a  glance  those  numberless  shades  of 
distinction  which  entirely  escape  the  notice  of  ordinary 
observers,  that  his  characters,  whether  sane  or  insane, 
are  neither  personified  abstractions  of  specific  qualities, 


Shakespeare's  delineations  oe  insanity.    485 

marked  by  a  name  and  assigned  a  part  in  the  play,  nor 
servile  copies  from  life  which  have  lost  their  interest 
under  the  process  of  transference,  but  real,  mortal  men 
who  live  and  act  before  us,  and  lose  their  senses  it  may 
be,  and  whose  names  live  after  them  in  the  memory  of 
men.  His  success  in  this  difficult  line  is  to  be  attributed 
to  that  distinguishing  faculty  of  his  mind,  of  deducing 
with  wonderful  correctness  general  principles  of  charac- 
ter from  the  narrowest  possible  range  of  observation. 
And  yet  he  had  peculiar  difficulties  to  overcome.  He 
had  not  only  to  divest  himself  of  the  popular  misconcep- 
tions of  insanity,  which  regard  it  as  a  jumble  of  intel- 
lectual manifestations  acknowledging  no  principle  of 
cohesion  or  concatenation,  but  his  opportunities  for 
observing  the  insane  were  scanty  and  imperfect.  No 
friendly  asylum  furnished  subjects  for  study  whose  men- 
tal endowments  were  worthy  of  his  study ;  and  such  as 
he  occasionally  met  by  the  roadside,  or  beheld  through 
the  bars  of  their  prison-house,  were  for  the  most  part, 
it  is  probable,  too  far  degraded  by  neglect  and  unkind- 
ness,  to  be  available  for  any  poetical  purpose.  It  is  not 
to  be  supposed,  however,  that  he. was  guided  solely  by 
intuition.  He  unquestionably  did  observe  the  insane, 
but  he  observed  them  as  the  great  comparative  anato- 
mist of  our  age  observed  the  remains  of  extinct  species 
of  animals,  —  from  one  of  the  smallest  bones  recon- 
structing the  whole  skeleton  of  the  creature,  reinvest- 
ing it  with  flesh  and  blood,  and  divining  its  manners  and 
habits.  By  a  similar  kind  of  sagacity,  Shakespeare,  from 
a  single  trait  of  mental  disease  that  he  did  observe,  was 
enabled  to  infer  the  existence  of  many  others  that  he  did 
not  observe,  and  from  this  profound  insight  into  the  law 
of  psychological  relations  he  derived  the  light  that  special 
observation  had  failed  to  supply.     Thus,  in  spite  of  all 


486     SHAKESPEARE'S   DELINEATIONS    OF   INSANITY. 

the  obstacles  in  his  way,  he  succeeded,  to  a  degree  that 
has  seldom  been  equalled,  in  representing  insanity,  both 
in  the  form  of  maniacal  wildness  and  disorder,  and  in 
that  of  extreme  depression  and  gloom.  Its  progress 
through  its  various  stages,  from  the  first  scarcely  per- 
ceptible deviation  from  the  soundness  of  health  to  its 
termination  in  recovery  or  death,  is  traced  with  that 
thorough  fidelity  to  nature  so  characteristic  of  all  his 
conceptions. 

In  the  tragedy  of  King  Lear,  Shakespeare  has  repre- 
sented the  principal  character  as  driven  to  madness  by 
the  unexpected  ingratitude  of  his  daughters ;  or,  more 
scientifically  speaking,  he  has  represented  a  strong  pre- 
disposition to  the  disease  as  being  rapidly  developed 
under  the  application  of  an  adequate  exciting  cause.  It 
is  no  part  of  his  object  to  excite  curiosity  by  a  liberal 
display  of  wildness  and  fury,  nor  awaken  our  pity  by 
the  spectacle  of  a  mind  in  ruins,  and  unconscious  of  its 
wretchedness.  He  aimed  at  dramatic  effect  by  opening 
the  fountains  of  sympathy  for  a  being  of  noble  nature 
and  generous  impulses  cruelly  despoiled  of  the  highest 
endowment  of  man,  but  not  so  far  as  to  lose  all  trace  of 
his  original  qualities,  or  cease  for  a  moment  to  command 
our  deepest  respect.  In  Lear,  we  have  a  man  of  a  hot 
and  hasty  temper,  of  strong  and  generous  passions,  of 
a  credulous  and  confiding  disposition,  governed  by  im- 
pulses rather  than  deliberate  judgment,  rendered  impa- 
tient of  restraint  or  contradiction  by  the  habit  of  command, 
with  a  nervous  temperament  strongly  susceptible  to  the 
vexations  of  life,  and,  moreover,  with  all  these  moral  in- 
firmities aggravated  by  old  age.  With  these  simple  ele- 
ments of  character  is  mingled  and  assimilated  more  or 
less  of  mental  derangement,  with  equal  regard  to  patho- 
logical propriety  and  dramatic  effect.     And    so  nicely 


shakespe abe's  delineations  of  insanity.    487 

adjusted  are  the  various  elements  of  sanity  and  insan- 
ity, and  so  admirably  do  they  support  and  illustrate  one 
another,  that  we  are  not  surprised  in  the  progress  of  the 
action  by  violent  contrasts  ;  and  we  feel  at  last  as  if  it 
were  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world  that  Lear 
should  go  mad,  and  precisely  in  the  way  represented  by 
the  poet.  Mad  as  he  becomes,  the  prominent  attributes 
of  his  character  are  always  to  be  seen.  Through  the 
whole  play,  he  is  the  same  generous,  confiding,  noble- 
hearted  Lear.  In  short,  assuming  Lear  to  be  an  histor- 
ical portrait  instead  of  a  poetical  creation,  we  should 
say  there  existed  in  his  case  a  strong  predisposition  to 
insanity,  and  that  if  it  had  not  been  developed  by  the 
approach  of  old  age,  or  the  conduct  of  his  daughters,  it 
probably  would  have  been  by  something  else.  His  incon- 
siderate rashness  in  distributing  his  kingdom  among  his 
children,  his  disinheriting  the  youngest  for  the  fearless 
expression  of  her  feelings,  and  his  banishment  of  Kent 
for  endeavoring  to  recall  him  to  a  sense  of  his  folly,  — 
all  indicate  an  ill-balanced  mind,  if  not  the  actual  inva- 
sion of  disease.  This  view  of  the  case  is  confirmed  by 
the  conversation  between  the  sisters,  immediately  after 
the  division  of  the  kingdom.  Goneril  says  :  "  You  see 
how  full  of  changes  his  age  is ;  the  observation  we  have 
made  of  it  hath  not  been  little.  He  always  loved  our 
sister  most ;  and  with  what  poor  judgment  he  hath  now 
cast  her  off,  appears  too  grossly."  "  'Tis  the  infirmity 
of  his  age,"  replies  Regan,  "  yet  he  hath  ever  but  slen- 
derly known  himself."  "  The  best  and  soundest  of  his 
time,"  continues  Goneril,  "  hath  been  but  rash  ;  then 
must  we  look  to  receive  from  his  age,  not  alone  the 
imperfections  of  long  engrafted  condition,  but,  there- 
withal, the  unruly  waywardness  that  infirm  and  choleric 
years  bring  with  them."     Regan  then  adds:  "  Such  in- 


488    Shakespeare's  delineations  of  insanity. 

constant  starts  are  we  like  to  have  from  him,  as  this  of 
Kent's  banishment.77  With  a  knowledge  of  insanity  that 
could  hardly  have  been  expected  from  any  but  a  profes- 
sional observer,  Shakespeare  has  here  and  elsewhere 
recognized  the  fact  that  very  many  of  those  who  become 
insane  are  previously  distinguished  by  some  of  those 
mental  irregularities  that  pass  under  the  name  of  oddity 
or  eccentricity. 

The  next  thing  we  hear  of  Lear  is  his  beating  one 
of  GoneriPs  gentlemen.  Her  remarks  on  learning  the 
fact  show  that  his  mental  condition  has  not  been  im- 
proving since  his  abdication,  and  prepare  us  for  the 
mournful  sequel. 

"By  day  and  night  he  wrongs  me  ;  every  hour 
He  flashes  into  one  gross  crime  or  other, 
That  sets  us  all  at  odds.    I'll  not  endure  it ; 
His  knights  grow  riotous,  and  himself  upbraids  us 
On  every  trifle." 

The  development  of  the  early  stage  of  Lear7s  insan- 
ity, or  its  incubation  as  it  is  technically  called,  is  man- 
aged with  masterly  skill,  the  more  surprising  as  it  is 
that  stage  of  the  disease  which  attracts  the  least  atten- 
tion. And  the  reason  is  that  the  derangement  is  evinced 
not  so  much  by  delusions  or  gross  improprieties  of  con- 
duct, as  by  a  mere  exaggeration  of  natural  peculiarities, 
by  inconsistencies  of  behavior,  by  certain  acts  for  which 
very  plausible  reasons  are  assigned  though  they  would 
never  have  been  performed  in  a  perfectly  sound  state  of 
mind,  by  gusts  of  passion  at  every  trifling  provocation, 
or  by  doing  very  proper  things  at  unseasonable  times 
and  occasions.  With  his  own  free  will  and  accord  he 
gives  away  his  kingdom,  but  finds  it  difficult  to  sink  the 
monarch  in  the  private  citizen.  He  attaches  to  his  per- 
son a  band  of  riotous  retainers,  whose  loose  and  lawless 


shakespeake's  delineations  of  insanity.    489 

behavior  proves  destructive  to  the  peace  and  good  order 
of  his  daughter's  household.  Goneril  describes  them 
as 

"  A  hundred  knights  and  squires  ; 
Men  so  disordered,  so  debauched  and  bold, 
That  this  our  court,  infected  with  their  manners, 
Shows  like  a  riotous  inn." 

Under  such  an  infliction  it  is  not  strange  that  she 
should  remonstrate,  and  had  not  the  divine  light  already 
begun  to  flicker,  he  would  have  acknowledged  the  jus- 
tice of  the  reproof.  As  it  is,  however,  instead  of  admit- 
ting some  share  of  the  fault,  he  attributes  the  whole  of 
it  to  her,  flies  into  a  passion,  pours  upon  her  head  the 
bitterest  curses,  upbraids  her  with  the  vilest  ingrati- 
tude, and  forthwith  proclaims  his  wrongs  to  the  public 
ear.  Like  most  cases  of  this  kind  in  real  life,  it  would 
have,  to  a  stranger,  the  appearance  of  a  family  quarrel 
springing  from  the  ordinary  motives  of  interest  or 
passion,  but  where,  really,  the  ill  regulated  conduct 
resulting  from  the  first  influences  of  disease  provokes 
restrictions  more  or  less  necessary  and  appropriate,  that 
become  exciting  causes  of  farther  disorder.  Another 
life-like  touch  is  given  to  the  picture,  in  Lear's  attribut- 
ing all  his  troubles  to  filial  ingratitude,  not  being 
aware,  of  course,  that  he  was  on  the  high  road  to  insan- 
ity long  before  he  had  any  reason  to  doubt  their  kind- 
ness. In  fact,  nothing  is  more  common  than  for  the 
patient,  when  telling  his  story,  to  fix  upon  some  event, 
and  especially  some  act  of  his  friends,  as  the  cause  of 
his  troubles,  which  occurred  long  subsequently  to  the 
real  origin  of  his  disorder,  and  might  have  had  but  an 
accidental  connection  with  it. 

The  conduct  of  the  daughters  faithfully  exhibits  the 
strong  tendencies  of  human  nature.     No  doubt   their 


490    Shakespeare's  delineations  of  insanity. 

patience  was  severely  tried,  —  such  a  trial  as  only  the 
mildest  temper  joined  with  the  firmest  principle  could 
enable  them  to  stand  successfully.  Wanting  these,  how- 
ever, his  irregularities  are  met  with  reproaches  and  re- 
strictions, instead  of  kind  and  conciliating  measures  ;  an 
explosion  follows,  and  in  mutual  hate  and  anger  they 
separate.  To  their  heartless  natures  such  conduct  may 
not  have  appeared  like  unmitigated  ingratitude  towards 
a  father  who  had  loved  and  cherished  them  as  the  very 
idols  of  his  heart,  but  to  be  founded  on  provocation  that 
seemed  to  justify  their  behavior.  Such  is  the  ingrati- 
tude of  the  world,  ever  coupled  with  some  shallow 
pretence  of  wrong  or  indignity  sustained,  and  often  pre- 
senting the  fair,  outside  show  of  a  worthier  feeling.  In 
the  daughters'  treatment  of  their  father,  Shakespeare 
strips  off  the  thin  disguises  of  conventional  morality, 
and  lays  bare  that  heartless  selfishness  which  is  ever 
ready  to  sacrifice  to  momentary  ease  and  gratification 
the  tenderest  sympathies  of  our  nature.  It  is  fearful  to 
think  how  often  the  case  of  Lear  and  his  daughters  is 
paralleled  in  actual  life,  and  it  is  this  very  commonness 
of  the  fact  that  prevents  us  from  regarding  it  as  a  curious 
monstrosity  fitted  to  excite  but  a  momentary  horror,  and 
which  imparts  a  deep  moral  interest  to  the  represen- 
tation of  the  poet. 

When  the  astounding  fact  of  GoneriPs  baseness  is 
finally  made  so  plain  to  Lear  that  he  can  no  longer  doubt 
it,  his  senses  appear  to  reel  under  the  shock,  and  for  a 
moment  he  questions  his  own  identity.  "  Does  any  here 
know  me?  —  Why,  this  is  not  Lear;  does  Lear  walk 
thus  ?  speak  thus  ?  Where  are  his  eyes  ?  Either  his  no- 
tion weakens  or  his  discernings  are  lethargied.  —  Sleep- 
ing or  waking  ?  —  Ha  !  sure  'tis  not  so.  —  Who  is  it  that 
can  tell  me  who  I  am  ?  " 


shakespeabe's  delineations  of  insanity.    491 

The  continued  objurgations  of  Goneril,  and  her  bare- 
faced impudence  in  proposing  a  diminution  of  his  train, 
soon  produce  a  reaction  in  his  mind,  and  Lear  gives 
vent  to  his  feelings  in  that  blasting  curse  whose  bitter- 
est ingredient  was  the  wish  that  she  might  feel 

"  How  sharper  than  a  serpent's  tooth  it  is 
To  have  a  thankless  child  !  " 

Then  bursting  into  tears  of  which  his  noble  nature  is 
ashamed,  he  quits  the  presence  of  a  child  upon  whose 
affection  he  had  reckoned  for  the  support  of  his  declining 
years,  and  resolves  to  go  to  his  other  daughter  who  had 
shared  in  his  bounties,  certain  that  he  would  receive 
from  her  the  hearty  welcome  and  tender  regard  that  had 
been  scornfully  refused  by  her  sister.  While  pondering 
upon  past  scenes,  he  is  conscious  that  his  mind  has  sus- 
tained a  fearful  shock  ;  and,  as  is  often  the  case  in  such 
circumstances,  he  has  a  vague  presentiment  of  the  sad, 
fatal  result. 

"  O,  let  me  not  he  mad,  not  mad,  sweet  Heaven  ! 
Keep  me  in  temper  ;  I  would  not  be  mad  !  " 

On  arriving  at  Regan's  residence,  he  finds  that  she 
refuses  to  see  him,  and  that  his  faithful  follower  has 
been  placed  in  the  stocks.  These  things  excite  his  sus- 
picion that  all  is  not  right,  and  renew  the  agitation  that 
had  been  momentarily  quieted.  Still  he  is  slow  to  be- 
lieve what  is  evident  enough  to  everybody  else,  and 
fondly  hugs  the  delusion  in  which  his  only  hope  of  hap- 
piness rests.  But  when  the  conviction  is  forced  upon 
him  that  Regan  even  goes  beyond  her  sister  in  ingrati- 
tude, he  utters  a  wail  of  heartfelt  wretchedness  and 
lofty  indignation,  ending  with  another  foreboding  of  the 
impending  calamity.  "  0,  fool,  I  shall  go  mad/'  Driven 
with  contumely  and  scorn  from  that  shelter  in  the  aflfec- 


492    Shakespeare's  delineations  of  insanity. 

tions  of  his  child  which  he  had  fondly  expected  to  find, 
he  goes  forth  at  night  and  braves  the  pelting  of  the  piti- 
less storm.  The  howling  of  the  wind,  the  roar  of  thun- 
der, and  the  flash  of  lightning  are  welcome,  for  at  least 
they  lack  the  sting  of  filial  ingratitude,  and  are  in 
mournful  accordance  with  the  tumult  in  his  own  crushed 
and  bleeding  bosom.  One  dark,  overshadowing,  all-en- 
grossing idea —  the  cruelty  of  his  daughters  —  is  sug- 
gested by  every  object,  gives  a  tone  to  all  his  reflections, 
and,  like  the  worm  that  never  dies,  is  gnawing  perpet- 
ually at  his  heart.  Well  might  he  invoke  the  fury  of 
the  elements  upon  his  head,  for  the  worst  they  could  do 
would  be  mercy  compared  with  the  torments  his  own 
flesh  and  blood  had  inflicted. 

"  The  tempest  in  my  mind 
Doth  from  my  senses  take  all  feeling  else, 
Save  what  beats  there." 

There  is  now  obviously  a  degree  of  incoherence  and 
absurdity  in  the  thoughts  that  race  through  his  mind, 
though  they  are  never  destitute  of  that  grandeur  and 
boldness  of  expression  indicative  of  his  lofty  and  noble 
nature.  But  the  idea  of  the  thunder  cracking  nature's 
moulds  and  destroying  the  germs  of  the  race,  contained 
in  his  invocation  to  the  elements,  is  a  little  too  fanciful 
for  even  a  figure  of  poetry.  In  a  similar  strain  he 
charges  the  elements  wTith  conspiring  with  his  daughters 
against  his  old  white  head,  and  soon  after  imagines  that 
the  Gods  have  raised  the  storm  for  the  purpose  of  find- 
ing out  their  enemies.  This  is  crazy  enough,  no  doubt ; 
but  his  apostrophe  to  sinners  of  various  kinds,  that 
immediately  follows,  is  both  correctly  and  beautifully 
expressed.  He  seems  to  be  fully  aware  that  his  thoughts 
are  deviating  from  the  right  track,  and  exclaims  that 
his  "  wits  begin  to  turn."    The  predominant  idea  follows 


SHAKESPE ARE'S    DELINEATIONS   OF   INSANITY.     493 

him  into  the  next  scene,  and  ever  and  anon  intrudes 
upon  his  reflections,  though  he  always  recoils  from  it 
with  a  kind  of  horror,  as  if  conscious  it  had  the  power 
to  deprive  him  of  his  reason.  "  0,  that  way  madness 
lies."  Unable  as  the  insane  are  to  perceive  their  own 
insanity,  yet  this  apprehension  of  its  approach  so  fre- 
quently repeated  by  Lear  usually  occurs  during  its 
incubation.  While  still  able  to  control  his  mental  mani- 
festations, the  patient  is  tortured  with  anticipations  of 
insanity ;  but  when  he  actually  becomes  so  insane  that 
the  most  careless  observer  perceives  the  fact,  then  he 
entertains  the  most  complacent  opinion  of  his  intellect- 
ual vigor  and  soundness.  And  yet  this  is  one  of  the 
nicer  traits  of  insanity  which  the  ordinary  observer 
would  hardly  be  supposed  to  notice.  But  Shakespeare 
was  no  ordinary  observer;  and  this,  I  imagine,  explains 
the  cause  of  his  preeminence  in  certain  parts  of  his 
art. 

The  appearance  of  Edgar,  who  is  feigning  madness  in 
order  to  avoid  his  enemies,  again  excites  Lear's  predomi- 
nant idea,  and  fixes  it  permanently  in  his  mind.  The 
former's  ragged,  wretched,  degraded  condition,  he  can 
attribute  to  nothing  but  filial  ingratitude,  and  he  pours 
out  curses  on  Edgar's  unnatural  daughters.  He  is  no 
longer  able  to  correct  the  errors  of  his  own  judgment; 
reason  exercises  but  a  feeble  control  over  his  conclu- 
sions, and  scarcely  a  gleam  of  light  struggles  through 
the  darkness  which  envelops  his  soul.  The  predomi- 
nant idea,  however,  has  not  yet  relinquished  its  hold, 
and  it  still  gives  direction  to  his  thoughts.  The  very 
images  of  his  daughters  appear  before  him  in  visible 
forms,  glowering  upon  him  with  looks  of  scorn  and  hate. 
The  idea  of  placing  them  on  trial  enters  his  mind,  and  he 
proceeds  to  the  business  with  all  due  forms  and  solernni- 


494    shakespeake's  delineations  of  insanity. 

ties.  Edgar,  the  fool,  and  Kent  are  appointed  to  the 
bench  ;  his  daughters,  in  the  shape  of  jointstools,  are 
arraigned  before  the  court ;  and  Lear  appears  as  witness 
against  them.  Then,  after  a  brief  interval  during  which 
it  would  seem  as  if  he  imagined  them  to  have  been  con- 
victed and  sentenced,  he  exclaims  with  touching  pathos, 
"  Let  them  anatomize  Regan,  see  what  breeds  about  her 
heart.  Is  there  any  cause  in  nature  that  makes  these 
hard  hearts  ?  " 

The  scene  on  the  heath  between  Lear,  Edgar,  and 
the  fool,  has  not  its  like,  we  may  safely  say,  in  the  whole 
range  of  English  dramatic  literature.  No  less  a  genius 
than  Shakespeare's  would  have  ventured  to  bring  to- 
gether, face  to  face,  three  such  difficult  characters,  — 
one  actually  mad,  one  falsely  pretending  to  be  so,  and 
the  third  a  fool ;  and  yet  in  the  successful  management 
of  such  discordant  and  intractable  materials,  he  has 
given  a  fresh  instance  of  his  wonderful  skill.  Nothing 
could  have  seemed  more  likely  to  disappoint  and  dis- 
please, than  to  bring  the  noble-hearted  Lear,  staggering 
under  the  shock  of  his  daughters'  ingratitude,  with 
blasted  heart  and  bewildered  reason,  into  such  strange 
companionship ;  and  yet  who  can  finish  this  scene,  with- 
out feeling  that  he  has  read  a  new  chapter  in  the  history 
of  mental  disease,  of  most  solemn  and  startling  import? 
The  sight  of  another  in  rags  and  wretchedness  reveals 
to  Lear  a  deeper  depth  of  agony  in  his  own  soul.  He 
sees  in  the  stranger  only  another  victim  of  filial  ingrati- 
tude,—  the  counterpart  of  his  own  case,  —  and  Edgar's 
weak  and  blighted  condition  forewarns  him  of  his  own 
approaching  fate.  Its  first  effect,  as  we  have  already 
observed,  is  to  produce  a  shower  of  curses  on  Edgar's 
unnatural  daughters,  and  the  next  to  draw  him  towards 
his  fellow  sufferer  by  that  kind  of  sympathy  which,  irre- 


shakespeake's  delegations  of  insanity.    495 

spective  of  social  condition,  is  awakened  by  mutual 
affliction.  In  this  play  of  wild  and  discordant  fancies 
the  fool  mingles  his  humors,  which  fall  on  the  ear  like 
sounds  of  jollity  and  mirth  ascending  from  a  house  of 
mourning.  The  successful  management  of  such  deep 
masses  of  light  and  shade,  whether  in  poetry  or  paint- 
ing, requires  the  master  hand  of  a  Shakespeare  or  a 
Rembrandt. 

Thus  far  the  progress  of  Lear's  insanity  is  represented 
with  the  closest  fidelity  to  nature.  It  is  not  more  differ- 
ent from  the  disease  as  daily  observed,  than  Lear's  moral 
and  intellectual  constitution,  when  in  health,  is  different 
from  ordinary  men's.  At  every  interview  reason  seems 
to  have  lost  somewhat  more  of  its  control.  The  men- 
tal excitement  has  been  steadily  increasing,  until  now, 
having  reached  its  height,  he  goes  about  singing,  danc- 
ing, and  capering  through  the  fields,  fantastically  deco- 
rated with  weeds  and  flowers,  looking,  acting,  and  talking 
like  a  madman.  His  perceptive  organs  are  deceived  by 
hallucinations  ;  and  his  discourse,  though  tinctured  with 
his  natural  shrewdness  and  vigor  of  thought,  is  full  of 
incoherence  and  incongruity.  In  short  he  is  now  what 
is  called  raving.  In  the  representation  of  this  condition 
we  have  another  instance  of  Shakespeare's  unrivalled 
powers  of  observation.  To  ordinary  apprehension,  the 
raving  of  a  maniac  is  but  an  arbitrary  jumble  of  words 
and  phrases  between  which  no  connecting  threads  can 
be  discerned.  But  in  fact,  discordant  and  heterogeneous 
as  they  may  appear,  they  are  nevertheless  subjected  to 
a  certain  law  of  association,  difficult  as  it  may  be  fre- 
quently to  discover  it.  The  phenomenon  may  thus  be 
physiologically  explained.  In  consequence  of  the  cere- 
bral excitement,  impressions  long  since  made —  so  long 
perhaps  as  to  have  been  forgotten  previous  to  the  at- 


496    Shakespeare's  delineations  of  insanity. 

tack — are  so  vividly  and  distinctly  recalled,  that  they 
appear  to  be  outward  realities.  So  long  as  the  intellect 
retains  its  integrity,  it  is  able  to  recognize  the  true 
nature  of  this  phenomenon  ;  but,  when  touched  by  dis- 
ease, it  ceases  to  correct  the  error  of  perception.  The 
impressions  are  actually  considered  to  be  what  they  ap- 
pear, and  the  patient  thinks  and  discourses  about  them 
as  such.  In  his  mind's  eye  he  sees  sights,  and  in  his 
mind's  ear  he  hears  sounds,  imperceptible  to  others ;  and 
this  is  the  source  of  much  of  our  difficulty  in  discovering 
the  object  and  relevancy  of  his  remarks.  Persons  and 
things  appear  before  him  in  "the  greatest  variety  and 
confusion  ;  and  past  scenes  and  associations  are  recalled 
in  all  their  original  freshness,  suggesting  thoughts  to 
which  he  alone  possesses  the  clew.  The  images  raised 
in  the  mind  by  this  morbid  excitement  are  also  rapidly 
changing,  thus  giving  to  the  thoughts  that  phantasma- 
goric character  by  which  they  are  so  distinguished  in 
mania.  They  seem  to  be  suggested  and  associated  very 
much  as  they  are  in  ordinary  dreaming,  in  which  the 
mind  is  occupied  with  impressions  previously  made,  and 
uncontrolled  by  that  regulating  principle  necessary  to 
give  them  logical  sequence  and  cohesion.  In  sleep  the 
person  we  are  addressing,  for  instance,  unaccountably 
changes  into  some  other ;  the  scene  in  which  we  are  en- 
gaged suddenly  vanishes  away,  and  another  appears  in 
its  place  ;  the  powers  of  memory  are  endowed  with  an 
energy  seldom  witnessed  in  the  waking  state  ;  the  rela- 
tions of  space,  of  time,  of  place,  of  form,  of  color,  are 
sadly  embroiled;  the  living  and  the  dead,  the  near  and 
remote,  wisdom  and  folly,  stand  side  by  side,  and  no 
sense  of  the  strange  combination  is  perceived.  We  may 
strive  perhaps  to  believe  it  a  dream  ;  but,  with  some  ex- 
ceptions, we  strive  in  vain.     Precisely  so  it  is  in  mania 


Shakespeare's  delineations  of  insanity.    497 

which  may,  with  some  propriety,  be  designated  as  dream- 
ing with  the  senses  all  open,  the  morbid  excitement  ren- 
dering the  images  unnaturally  vivid. 

Another  source  of  our  difficulty  in  discovering  the 
filiation  of  the  maniac's  thoughts  has  been  generally 
overlooked,  and  the  fact  strongly  shows  with  how  little 
sagacity  the  operations  of  the  insane  mind  have  been 
studied.  The  maniac,  being  restrained  by  no  sense  of  the 
propriety  or  fitness  of  things,  expresses  every  thought 
that  enters  his  mind,  or  at  any  rate  is  governed  by  no 
principle  of  selection.  In  the  sound  mind,  on  the  con- 
trary, a  considerable  portion  of  the  thoughts  never  find 
utterance  in  words,  being  suppressed  from  their  want  of 
connection  with  one  another,  or  their  irrelevancy  to  the 
subject  in  hand.  Every  one  must  be  aware  how  often, 
in  the  course  of  ordinary  conversation,  thoughts  start 
up  having  the  remotest  possible  connection  with  any- 
thing already  said,  —  so  remote,  indeed,  as  to  defy  any 
one  but  himself  to  discover  it.  Any  person  who  should 
utter  every  thought  that  arose  in  his  mind,  in  the  freest 
possible  conversation,  would  most  certainly  be  taken  for 
a  fool  or  a  maniac.  This  mental  defect  is  far  from  being 
confined  to  the  state  of  raving.  In  a  greater  or  less  de- 
gree it  occurs  in  almost  every  form  of  insanity.  Even 
those  whose  delusions  are  very  circumscribed ;  who  con- 
duct for  the  most  part  with  great  propriety,  and  to  com- 
mon observers  betray  no  indication  of  unsoundness  in 
their  conversation,  will  usually  evince  it,  when  very 
talkative  and  encouraged  to  talk  without  interruption. 
Their  remarks  may  be  correct  and  even  shrewd  ;  not  a 
single  word  may  be  uttered  w  sounding  to  folly,"  while 
there  is  a  certain  peculiarity  in  the  association  of  their 
ideas  never  witnessed  in  the  sound  mind.  Though  not 
easily  described,  it  is  readily  recognized  by  those  who 

32 


498    Shakespeare's  delineations  of  insanity. 

are  conversant  with  the  insane,  and  to  them  it  is  a  con- 
clusive proof  of  mental  disease,  though  they  may  be 
incapable  of  making  the  grounds  of  their  conclusions  in- 
telligible to  others.  Courts  and  juries  are  not  always 
disposed  to  make  sufficient  allowance  for  this  fact,  and 
regard  with  suspicion  the  embarrassment  of  the  medical 
jurist,  who  sees  that  what  is  to  him  the  strongest  proof 
of  insanity  is  to  others  no  proof  at  all.  Bearing  in  mind 
these  facts,  we  readily  see  how  there  may  always  be 
some  method  in  madness,  however  wild  and  furious  it 
may  be,  —  some  traces  of  that  delicate  thread  which, 
though  broken  in  numerous  points,  still  forms  the  con- 
necting link  between  many  groups  and  patches  of 
thought.  It  is  in  consequence  of  Shakespeare's  knowl- 
edge of  this  psychological  law,  that  in  all  his  represen- 
tations of  madness,  even  though  characterized  by  wild- 
ness  and  irregularity,  we  are  never  at  a  loss  to  perceive 
that  the  disease  is  real  and  not  assumed.  Not  so,  howT- 
ever,  with  most  writers,  even  of  distinguished  name, 
who  have  undertaken  to  represent  the  workings  of  a  dis- 
eased mind.  Unaware  of  the  law  in  question,  and  gov- 
erned by  the  popular  notions  on  the  subject,  they  seem 
to  have  aimed  only  at  unlimited  extravagance  and  inco- 
herence. Otway,  for  instance,  in  "  Venice  Preserved," 
represents  Belvidera  in  that  state  of  mental  disturbance 
which  results  from  wounds  of  the  softer  affections  of  the 
heart.  A  speech  full  of  those  strong  and  vehement 
expressions  characteristic  of  deep-felt  emotion,  but  pre- 
senting no  trace  of  delusion,  finishes  wTith  the  following 
jargon,  which,  we  venture  to  say,  no  insane  person  would 
have  uttered  in  such  a  connection,  though  it  might,  very 
likely,  proceed  from  one  simulating  the  disease, — 

"  Murmuring  streams,  soft  shades,  and  springing  flowers, 
Lutes,  laurels,  seas  of  milk,  and  ships  of  amber." 


Shakespeare's  delineations  of  insanity.    499 

In  the  first  scene  in  which  Lear  makes  his  appearance 
after  becoming  stark  mad,  his  mind  is  solely  occupied 
with  images  formed  under  the  influence  of  the  intense 
excitement  of  the  internal  perceptive  organs.  He  at 
first  fancies  himself  in  a  battle,  and  then  as  engaged  in 
the  sports  of  archery  and  falconry.  Something  reminds 
him  of  Goneril,  and  then  succeed  to  one  another,  by  a 
natural  association,  the  ideas  of  a  white  beard,  of  the 
flattery  of  his  courtiers,  and  of  the  detection  of  their  de- 
ceptions. When  Gloster  hears  his  voice  and  asks  if  it 
be  not  the  King's,  Lear  replies,  "  Aye,  every  inch  a 
king.'7  Visions  of  his  royal  state  then  pass  before  his 
eyes,  and  he  is  reminded  of  the  criminals  he  pardoned 
and  the  crimes  they  committed,  and  thence,  by  a  natural 
transition,  he  is  led  to  some  caustic  reflections  on  the 
frailties  of  woman.  Another  remark  of  Gloster  turns 
his  mind  to  the  examples  of  self-righteousness  and  self- 
deception,  servility  and  time-serving,  with  which  the 
world  abounds,  and  in  a  strain  of  bold,  indignant  sar- 
casm he  lashes  the  vices  to  which  poor  human  nature  is 
especially  prone.  All  this  is  exceedingly  natural.  It  is 
not  uncommon  to  meet  with  madmen  of  the  most  wild 
and  turbulent  description  mixing  up  their  utterances 
with  the  shrewdest  remarks  upon  men  and  things,  and 
the  keenest  and  coolest  invective  against  those  who  have 
incurred  their  displeasure.  The  poet,  perhaps,  has  used 
the  utmost  license  of  his  art  in  the  present  instance  ;  but 
if  few  madmen  have  exhibited'so  much  matter  mingled 
with  their  impertinency  as  Lear,  it  may  be  replied,  in 
justification,  that  few  men  are  endowed  like  Lear  with 
such  a  union  of  strong  passions  and  natural  shrewdness 
of  understanding. 

Here  endeth  the  madness  of  Lear.     By  his  youngest 
daughter  he  is  placed  in  the  charge  of  a  physician  whose 


\ 


( 


500    shakespeaee's  delineations  of  insanity. 

medicines  throw  him  into  a  deep  sleep,  from  which  and 
his  madness  together  he  awakes  as  from  a  dream.  The 
manner  of  his  recovery  displays  the  poet's  consummate 
skill,  that  could  delineate  the  most  touching  and  beau- 
tiful traits  while  observing  the  strictest  regard  to  facts. 
Lear  at  first  knows  not  where  he  is,  nor  where  he  has 
been.  He  scarcely  recognizes  his  own  friends,  and 
almost  doubts  his   own  identity. 

"  Pray,  do  not  mock  me, 
I  am  a  foolish,  fond  old  man, 
Fourscore  and  upwards ;   and,  to  deal  plainly, 
I  fear  I  am  not  in  my  perfect  mind. 
Methinks  I  should  know  you,  and  know  this  man  ; 
Yet  I  am  doubtful ;  for  I  am  mainly  ignorant 
What  place  this  is  ;  and  all  the  skill  I  have 
Remembers  not  these  garments  ;  nor  I  know  not 
Where  I  did  lodge  last  night." 

A  faint  idea  of  recent  events  now  occurs  to  him,  and 
he  says  to  Cordelia, : —  ^ 

/  j  "Your  sisters 

V  \  Have,  as  I  do  remember,  done  me  wrong."       / 

A  more  faithful  picture  of  the  mind,  at  the  moment 
when  it  is  emerging  from  the  darkness  of  disease  into 
the  clear  atmosphere  of  health  restored,  was  never  exe- 
cuted than  this  of  Lear's  recovery.  Generally,  recovery 
from  acute  mania  is  gradual,  one  delusion  after  another 
giving  way,  until,  after  a  series  of  struggles,  which  may 
occupy  weeks  or  months,  between  the  convictions  of 
reason  and  the  suggestions  of  disease,  the  patient  comes 
out  a  sound,  rational  man.  In  a  small  proportion  of 
cases,  however,  this  change  takes  place  very  rapidly. 
Within  the  space  of  a  few  hours  or  a  day  he  recognizes 
his  true  condition,  abandons  his  delusions,  and  contem- 
plates all  his  relations  in  an  entirely  different  light. 

The   management   of   Edgar's    simulation    strikingly 


Shakespeare's  delineations  of  insanity.    501 

evinces  the  accuracy  and  extent  of  Shakespeare's 
knowledge  of  mental  pathology.  In  placing  the  real 
and  the  simulated  affection  side  by  side,  he  has  shown 
a  confidence  in  his  own  skill  which  the  result  has  per- 
fectly justified.  In  no  other  way  could  the  fidelity  of  his 
delineations  have  been  subjected  to  so  severe  an  ordeal. 
We  are  left  in  no  doubt  as  to  his  views  of  what  is  and 
what  is  not  genuine  insanity ;  and  by  holding  before  us 
an  elaborate  picture  of  each,  he  enables  us  to  compare 
them  together,  and  to  judge  of  his  success  for  ourselves. 
In  these  pictures  he  has  availed  himself  of  no  equivocal 
traits;  the  touches  of  his  pencil  are  of  that  strong  and 
decided  character  that  admits  but  a  single  meaning. 
Not  more  true  to  nature  is  the  representation  of  Lear 
writhing  under  the  stroke  of  real  insanity,  than  is  that 
of  Edgar  playing  upon  the  popular  curiosity  with  such 
shams  and  artifices  as  would  most  effectually  answer  the 
simulator's  purpose.  The  one  is  an  exhibition  of  char- 
acter as  genuine,  and  marked  by  as  distinctive  traits,  as 
the  other  ;  and  Shakespeare  would  have  been  as  unlikely 
to  confound  them,  and  mistake  the  one  for  the  other, 
as  to  fail  to  recognize  the  commonest  forms  of  nature 
around  him. 

Edgar's  first  design  is  to  personate  a  Tom  o'  Bedlam 
beggar,  —  one  of  a  class  of  lunatics  who  were  discharged 
from  Bethlehem  Hospital  when  restored  in  some  measure, 
that  they  might  subsist  upon  the  charities  of  the  com- 
munity. Accordingly,  he  provides  himself  with  their 
usual  dress  and  appurtenances,  repeats  their  phrases, 
and  imitates  their  practices  for  exciting  the  compassion 
of  the  charitable.  In  his  anxiety  to  produce  an  impres- 
sion, he  falls  into  the  common  mistake  of  simulators,  who 
overact  their  part,  and  thus  betray  their  true  character 
to  the  practised  observer.  We  could  not  commit  a  greater 


502    Shakespeare's  delineations  of  insanity. 

error,  however,  than  to  regard  this  fact  as  a  fault  of  the 
poet,  who  displays  in  it  a  power  of  philosophical  discrim- 
ination which,  when  strongly  marked,  is  indicative  of 
the  highest  order  of  genius.  The  object  of  the  part  is 
to  deceive  the  multitude,  not  the  professional  student ; 
and  for  this  purpose  nothing  could  be  better  calculated 
than  the  gibberish  which  he  utters  in  his  double  char- 
acter of  a  lunatic  beggar  and  a  victim  of  demoniac  pos- 
session. Had  it  been  Shakespeare's  design  to  represent 
a  case  of  real  demonomania,  or  of  chronic  mania,  we 
should  unquestionably  have  had  something  very  differ- 
ent from  the  part  of  Edgar.  If  the  former,  we  should 
not  have  found  the  patient  talking  so  clearly  about  his 
own  case,  while  indulging  in  unlimited  incoherence  and 
rambling  about  everything  else  ;  and  if  the  latter,  we 
should  not  have  seen  a  strain  of  acute  moralizing  suc- 
ceeded, more  than  once,  by  a  trait  of  mental  imbecility. 
Poetically  considered,  the  feigned  madness  of  Edgar  is 
well  calculated,  by  force  of  contrast,  to  deepen  the  im- 
pression made  by  the  real  madness  of  Lear.  The  abject 
condition  of  the  former  excites  our  pity,  as  an  object  of 
physical  distress  which  we  would  endeavor  to  relieve. 
In  the  case  of  Lear,  however,  all  the  finer  emotions 
of  the  soul  are  aroused  by  the  sight  of  a  noble  nature 
crushed  to  the  earth  by  sufferings  which  touch  the  in- 
most springs  of  humanity. 

We  cannot  dismiss  this  play  without  a  passing  notice 
of  the  Fool,  in  whose  character  Shakespeare  has  shown 
that  his  observation  of  mental  impairment  was  not  con- 
fined to  one  or  a  few  of  its  forms.  He  is  used  like  the 
same  character  in  other  plays,  his  quips  and  cranks  serv- 
ing as  a  foil  to  the  humors  of  his  stronger-minded 
companions.  They  who  find  fault  with  the  poet  for  in- 
fusing too  much  wisdom  into  the  folly  of  his  fools  may 


shakespeake's  delineations  of  insanity.    503 

well  take  a  lesson  from  him  in  certain  branches  of 
psychological  study.  In  the  present  instance,  he  knew, 
what  is  not  geuerally  known  even  now,  as  we  often  have 
painful  reason  to  remark,  that  a  very  obvious  degree  of 
intellectual  deficiency  is  sometimes  accompanied  by  a 
little  shrewdness  of  observation  and  practical  sagacity. 
They  who  are  much  conversant  with  this  form  of  mental 
impairment  have  no  difficulty  in  believing  that  the  very 
person  who  is  unable  to  rise  to  the  simplest  abstract 
truth  may  occasionally  utter  a  shrewd  remark,  and  suc- 
ceed as  well  as  wiser  men  in  "  shooting  folly  as  it  flies." 
It  was  this  class  of  subjects  that  furnished  the  domestic 
fools  and  court-jesters  of  the  olden  time.  With  not  suf- 
ficient understanding  or  character  to  awaken  the  jeal- 
ousy of  their  patrons,  or  exercise  any  restraint  upon 
their  manners,  they  had  the  sense  to  discern  the  foibles 
and  follies  of  their  superiors,  and  ready  wit  enough  to 
extract  from  them  food  for  amusement  and  mirth.  The 
biting  jest  and  timely  reproof  were  good-naturedly  re- 
ceived, for  their  acknowledged  imbecility  rendered  them, 
for  the  most  part,  quite  irresponsible  for  their  sayings 
and  doings.  With  such  characters  royalty  could  unbend 
without  loss  of  dignity,  and  enjoy  a  jest  even  at  its  own 
expense. 

In  Hamlet,  that  noble  play  in  which  beyond  all  others, 
perhaps,  Shakespeare  has  displayed  the  wonderful  di- 
versity of  his  powers,  we  have  another  and  a  very  differ- 
ent picture  of  disordered  intellect,  but  one  no  less 
remarkable  for  its  fidelity  to  nature,  nor  less  calculated 
to  awaken  the  interest  and  sympathy  of  the  reader.  Be- 
fore considering  the  origin  and  progress  of  Hamlet's 
insanity,  it  may  be  thought  incumbent  upon  us  to  dis- 
pose of  a  preliminary  question  now  discussed  by  every 
commentator  on  Shakespeare. 


504    Shakespeare's  delineations  of  insanity. 

It  is  somewhat  curious  that,  until  within  a  few 
years,  Hamlet's  derangement  was  universally  regarded 
as  feigned.  Aside  from  his  own  intimation  after  meet- 
ing the  ghost,  that  he  might  "  put  an  antic  disposition 
on,"  it  is  difficult  to  conceive  of  any  foundation  for  this 
opinion.  And  yet  it  would  seem  as  if  the  strongest  and 
clearest  reasons  alone  could  warrant  the  idea  that  the 
most  faithful  delineation  of  a  disordered  mind  ever  made 
by  man  represents  a  deceptive  counterfeit,  not  a  truth  and 
a  reality.  Without  a  single  adequate  reason,  this  notion 
has  been  handed  down,  like  an  heirloom,  from  one  critic 
to  another,  unquestioned  and  apparently  unquestionable, 
in  the  very  face  of  the  fact  that  Hamlet's  insanity,  which 
is  supposed  to  be  assumed  for  the  purpose  of  concealing 
his  plans,  immediately  excites  the  apprehensions  of  the 
king,  and  leads  to  his  own  banishment  from  the  State. 
True,  it  is  supposed  to  answer  another  purpose,  —  that 
of  enabling  him  to  break  off  his  attachment  with  Ophelia, 
which  the  dread  mission  he  had  to  perform  forbade  him 
any  longer  to  entertain.  But  the  necessity  of  this  step 
is  unsupported  by  a  single  proof.  No  intimation  of  it  is 
given  in  the  course  of  the  play,  and  it  has  no  foundation 
in  the  nature  of  things.  Of  course,  no  possible  difficulty 
would  be  allowed  to  prevail  against  a  theory  deliberately 
founded  on  such  premises  as  these.  A  most  perverse 
ingenuity  has  been  exercised  in  endeavoring  to  recon- 
cile some  passages  in  Hamlet's  conduct  with  the  admit- 
ted qualities  of  his  character  and  the  ordinary  springs 
of  human  action.  It  would  be  hardly  worth  our  while 
here  to  expose  any  particular  instances  of  this  kind. 
Enough  of  them  will  appear  in  the  course  of  this  inquiry 
to  justify  our  opinion,  while  the  attentive  reader  will 
not  fail  to  see  that  Hamlet's  disorder  is  often  manifested 
under  circumstances  that  forbid  the  idea  of  simulation. 


Shakespeare's  delineations  of  insanity.    505 

It  may  be  well  to  remark,  in  passing,  that  the  reluct- 
ance of  critics  to  abandon  the  old  view  of  Hamlet's 
mental  condition,  springs,  in  great  measure,  from  their 
inability  to  discern  the  essential  distinction  between 
real  and  feigned  insanity.  If,  say  they,  the  latter  is  made 
to  resemble  very  closely  the  real  thing,  it  is  only  a  proof 
of  the  poet's  power  of  imitation,  not  of  his  intention  to 
represent  a  case  of  genuine  disease.  They  forget  that 
the  purpose  of  feigned  insanity  is  to  deceive, —  to  trick 
the  spectator  into  the  belief  of  something  that  has  no 
real  existence.  Therefore,  no  traits  of  the  disease  are 
exhibited  but  such  as  are  calculated  to  make  this  im- 
pression in  the  strongest  manner,  those  being  carefully 
avoided  which  are  not  generally  obtruded  upon  the  ob- 
server, as  well  as  those  which  pass  in  the  world  for 
something  else,  such  as  eccentricity,  bad  humor,  low 
spirits.  The  purposes  of  the  simulator  require  that  the 
traits  he  assumes  should  be  obvious  immediately,  and  so 
he  forces  them  on  the  attention  with  no  regard  to  patho- 
logical proprieties,  or  to  any  principle  of  subordination. 
That  Shakespeare  bore  this  distinction  in  mind  in  the 
present  instance,  is  obvious  in  every  scene  of  the  play. 
All  can  recognize  insanity  in  one  who  raves  or  utters 
gross  delusions  ;  but  how  few  can  see  it  in  Hamlet's 
scorching  rebuke  of  his  mother,  in  his  harsh  treatment 
of  Ophelia,  in  his  murder  of  Polonius,  in  his  famous  solilo- 
quy on  death,  or  in  his  welcoming  address  to  his  old 
school  fellows.  In  much  of  this  conduct  and  discourse 
most  persons  would  see  nothing  more  than  an  extreme 
acerbity  of  temper,  an  early  experience  of  the  hollow- 
ness  of  life,  and  at  the  worst,  perhaps,  a  fit  of  depres- 
sion. 

It  is  to  be  considered  also  that  there  are  many  traits 
of  the   real  disease  that  defy  the  utmost  efforts  of  mim- 


506    Shakespeare's  delineations  of  insanity. 

icry  to  simulate.  The  perversion  of  the  moral  affections, 
the  sincere  and  solemn  earnestness  with  which  the 
patient  announces  and  maintains  his  delusions,  that 
peculiar  concatenation  of  the  thoughts,  so  difficult  to 
describe,  but  so  characteristic  of  insanity,  —  all  these  are 
traits  as  far  beyond  the  power  of  the  simulator  to  imi- 
tate, as  the  quick  pulse,  furred  tongue,  and  dry  skin  of 
its  more  recent  and  acute  forms. 

It  has  been  occasionally  suggested  that  Hamlet's  in- 
sanity is  real,  but  the  idea  has  never  been  supported  by 
proof  drawn  from  the  pathological  aspects  of  the  case. 
Some  —  and  they  belong  to  the  class  that  have  illumi- 
nated the  pages  of  Shakespeare  with  the  torch  of  a  pro- 
found and  philosophical  criticism  —  have  come  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  truth  lies  in  an  eclectic  view  of  the 
case,  less  burdened  with  difficulties.  They  admit  that  a 
cloud  unquestionably  hangs  over  Hamlet's  understand- 
ing, but  they  are  reluctant  to  attribute  so  sad  and  hum- 
bling an  incident  as  madness  to  such  a  noble  and  elevated 
character.  His  profound  speculations  on  the  purposes 
of  life  and  his  solemn  questioning  of  its  meaning,  the  per- 
tinency of  his  replies,  the  exquisite  wit  and  wisdom  of 
his  discourse,  the  sagacity  and  forecast  displayed  in  his 
plans,  the  true  nobility  of  his  nature,  —  all  forbid  the 
idea  of  madness.  These  persons  embrace  the  popular 
error  of  regarding  madness  as  but  another  name  for 
confusion  and  violence,  overlooking  the  daily  fact  that  it 
is  compatible  with  some  of  the  ripest  and  richest  mani- 
festations of  the  intellect.  They  flout  at  the  idea  of  real 
madness,  as  if  it  were  connected  with  images  of  straw 
and  straight-waistcoats,  while  in  the  simulation  of  the 
disease  they  see  no  breach  of  pathological,  moral,  nor 
dramatic  propriety.  In  regard  to  this  point,  it  is  enough 
to  state  it  as  a  scientific  fact,  that  Hamlet's  mental  con- 


Shakespeare's  delineations  of  insanity.    507 

dition  furnishes,  in  abundance,  the  characteristic  symp- 
toms of  insanity,  in  wonderful  harmony  and  consist- 
ency. 

The  insanity  of  Hamlet,  supposing  it  to  be  real,  fur- 
nishes us  with  a  satisfactory  clew  to  some  of  his  conduct, 
and  especially  to  the  leading  principle  of  the  play. 
Although  no  other  of  Shakespeare's  plays  has  excited  so 
much  speculation,  there  still  prevails  a  remarkable  dis- 
crepancy of  opinion  on  the  most  interesting  questions 
connected  with  it.  No  one  denies  that  the  character  and 
conduct  of  Hamlet  are  in  the  strictest  accordance  with 
the  principles  of  human  nature,  but  no  two  are  agreed 
upon  what  particular  principles  they  are  to  be  explained. 
In  plain  terms,  Shakespeare's  science  of  human  nature 
is  more  profound  than  that  of  his  critics.  Had  his  char- 
acters been  constructed  as  the  heroe*s  of  the  novel  and 
drama  often  are,  to  illustrate  the  workings  of  some  par- 
ticular passion  or  rule  of  action,  made,  so  to  speak,  like 
those  automata  that  execute  a  series  of  motions  by  an 
ingenious  combination  of  springs  and  levers,  it  would 
have  been  comparatively  easy  to  discover  the  principle 
of  their  construction.  It  is  for  the  very  reason  that 
Hamlet  is  no  machine,  but  a  living,  human  soul,  that,  as 
in  the  case  of  most  distinguished  men,  his  character  is 
not  so  easily  read. 

The  principal  cause  of  the  failure  of  critics  to  dis- 
cover the  central  principle  of  this  admirable  creation  of 
Shakespeare's  genius  is  that  they  have  overlooked  one 
of  its  most  important  elements.  The  pathological  ele- 
ment working  in  the  midst  of  his  motives  and  impulses, 
and  throwing  its  shadow  over  his  affections,  they  have 
failed  to  discern;  while  others  of  very  questionable  ex- 
istence have  been  found  in  abundance.  Goethe  says, — 
"  It  is  clear  to  me  that  Shakespeare's  intention  was  to 


508    Shakespeare's  delineations  of  insanity. 

exhibit  the  effects  of  a  great  action  imposed  as  a  duty 
upon  a  mind  too  feeble  for  its  accomplishment.  In  this 
sense  I  find  the  character  consistent  throughout.  Here 
is  an  oak  planted  in  a  china  vase,  proper  only  to  receive 
the  most  delicate  flowers :  the  roots  strike  out,  and  the 
vessel  flies  to  pieces.  A  pure,  noble,  highly  moral  dis- 
position, but  without  that  energy  of  soul  that  consti- 
tutes the  hero,  sinks  under  a  load  which  it  can  neither 
support,  nor  resolve  to  abandon  altogether.  All  his  obli- 
gations are  sacred  to  him ;  but  this  alone  is  above  his 
powers."  Certainly,  Hamlet  is  not  one  of  that  class  of 
persons  to  whom  such  a  commission  as  he  received  is 
peculiarly  congenial ;  but  on  other  occasions,  when  the 
utmost  energy  of  purpose  and  of  performance  is  required, 
we  witness  nothing  of  this  feebleness  of  will.  His  spirit 
fully  awakens  to  the  call,  his  nerves  are  braced,  and  his 
execution  is  prompt  and  decided.  He  instantly  decides 
on  following  the  ghost,  feels  "  each  petty  artery  in  his 
body  hard  as  the  Nemsean  lion's  nerve,"  and  fiercely 
throws  off  his  friends  who  would  prevent  him.  In  kill- 
ing Polonius,  when  his  hand  as  rapidly  executes  as  his 
mind  conceives,  he  shows  no  lack  of  energy,  no  halting 
between  two  opinions.  True,  he  evinces  great  infirmity 
of  purpose  in  regard  to  the  great  mission  assigned  him, 
but  this  must  be  accepted  as  one  of  those  inconsistencies 
so  characteristic  of  the  insane  mind. 

Mr.  Hudson,  the  very  able  lecturer  on  Shakespeare, 
attributes  Hamlet's  irresolution,  not  to  any  original  de- 
fect in  his  mental  constitution,  but  to  the  peculiar  cir- 
cumstances in  which  he^is  placed.  A  refined,  amiable, 
and  conscientious  man,  with  high  notions  of  honor  and 
a  strong  sense  of  reverence,  is  suddenly  required  to 
become  the  minister  of  vengeance,  —  to  destroy  his 
uncle,  the  husband  of  his  mother,  and  his  king.     Is  it 


Shakespeare's  delineations  of  insanity.    509 

strange  that  lie  should  hesitate,  that  he  should  shrink 
from  the  terrible  duty  imposed  upon  him,  and  dally  with 
excuses  for  delay?  Had  he  not  been  affected  thus,  he 
would  not  have  been  Hamlet,  and  would  have  failed  to 
excite  that  feeling  of  personal  regard  produced  by  his 
noble  nature,  his  gentle  and  gentlemanly  demeanor. 
There  is  much  truth  in  this  view  of  Hamlet.  The  cir- 
cumstances in  question  undoubtedly  had  great  influence 
upon  him  ;  but  not  to  an  extent,  as  here  supposed,  un- 
becoming his  reputation  as  a  scholar,  a  gentleman,  and 
a  prince.  In  his  interview  with  Ophelia,  where  he  stu- 
diously lacerates  her  feelings  with  harsh  and  bitter  sar- 
casm, we  see  none  of  this  extraordinary  refinement  of 
feeling ;  and  in  consigning  his  old  friends  Rosencrantz 
and  Guildenstern  to  the  fate  that  was  intended  for  him- 
self, we  can  perceive  no  signs  of  a  troublesome  tender- 
ness of  conscience.1 

On  the  supposition  of  his  real  insanity,  we  have  a 
satisfactory  explanation  of  the  difficulties  which  have 
received  such  various  solutions.  The  integrity  of  every 
train  of  reasoning  is  marred  by  some  intrusion  of  dis- 
ease ;  the  smooth,  deep  current  of  his  feelings  is  turned 
into  eddies  and  whirlpools  under  its  influence,  and  his 
most  solemn  undertakings  conducted  to  an  abortive 
issue.  His  clearest  perceptions,  his  holiest  purposes,  his 
strongest  determinations,  are  followed  by  the  doubts, 
apprehensions,  and  scruples  that  torment  and  distract 
the  disordered  mind.  While  his  whole  soul  is  occupied 
with  the  idea  of  revenge,  he  is  ever  finding  excuses 
for  postponing  the  moment  of  execution, —  constantly 

1  In  a  work  lately  published  by  this  gentleman,  entitled  "  Shake- 
speare's Life,  Art,  and  Characters/'  he  declares  that  subsequent  reading 
and  reflection  have  convinced  him  that  Hamlet's  madness  is  real,  and  not 
feigned. 


510    Shakespeare's  delineations  of  insanity. 

turned  from  his  purpose  by  the  merest  whim,  and  justi- 
fying his  conduct  by  reasons  too  flimsy  to  satisfy  any 
but  a  disordered  intellect.  Such  is  the  nature  of  in- 
sanity,—  to  talk,  but  not  to  act ;  to  resolve,  but  never  to 
execute  ;  to  support  the  soundest  projects  for  action  by 
the  most  imperfect  performance. 

In  Lear  we  are  presented  with  the  origin,  progress, 
and  termination  of  a  case  of  acute  mania,  —  that  form  of 
mental  disorder  in  which  the  mind  becomes  at  last  com- 
pletely unsettled,  and  all  its  operations  pervaded  by 
discord  and  confusion.  Hamlet's  insanity  differs  from 
Lear's,  in  not  having  the  successive  steps  of  its  progress 
so  well  marked  and  regular  ;  in  presenting  less  inco- 
herence of  thought  and  less  nervous  excitement.  In  his 
case,  acute  general  mania  like  Lear's  would  have  been 
incompatible  with  that  degree  of  forecast  and  self-con- 
trol which  the  character  required  ;  and  simple  mono- 
mania, where  the  sphere  of  the  mental  aberration  is  a 
very  limited  one,  —  the  individual  for  the  most  part  ob- 
serving the  ordinary  proprieties  and  courtesies  of  life, — 
would  have  been  equally  out  of  the  question,  because  it 
would  not  have  exerted  the  requisite  influence  over  the 
action  of  the  play.  With  great  skill  therefore,  —  a  skill 
founded  on  what  would  seem  to  be  a  professional  knowl- 
edge of  the  subject,  —  Shakespeare  has  selected  for  his 
purpose  that  form  of  the  disease  in  which  the  indi- 
vidual is  mad  enough  to  satisfy  the  most  superficial 
observer,  while  he  still  retains  sufficient  power  of  re- 
flection and  self-control  to  form  and  pursue,  if  not  to 
execute,  a  well-defined,  well-settled  purpose  of  revenge. 
In  order  the  better  to  understand  the  conduct  of  Ham- 
let, we  should  bear  in  mind  that  he  was  a  man  of  warm 
affections,  refined  tastes,  and  a  quick  sense  of  honor,  and 
possessing  a  high  order  of  intellectual  endowments.  With 


Shakespeare's  delineations  of  insanity.    511 

these  simple  elements  of  character,  the  manifestations  of 
disease  are  made  to  harmonize  and  blend  so  intimately 
together,  that  it  is  not  always  easy  to  distinguish  be- 
tween them. 

It  is  obvious  that  the  death  of  his  father  and  the  pre- 
cipitate marriage  of  his  mother  have  already  depressed 
his  spirits,  and  thrown  an  air  of  sadness  and  gloom  over 
his  conversation  and  general  bearing.  The  iron  had 
entered  his  soul,  and  on  his  first  introduction  to  us  we 
perceive  some  indication  of  the  torture  it  produces. 
When  his  mother  reproves  him  for  unduly  yielding  to 
his  grief,  he  touchingly  replies, — 

"  'Tis  not  alone  my  inky  cloak,  good  mother, 
Nor  customary  suits  of  solemn  black, 
Nor  windy  suspiration  of  forced  breath, 
'  No,  nor  the  fruitful  river  in  the  eye, 
Nor  the  dejected  havior  of  the  visage, 
Together  with  all  forms,  modes,  shows  of  grief, 
That  can  denote  me  truly.     These,  indeed,  seem, 
For  they  are  actions  that  a  man  might  play  : 
But  I  have  that  within  which  passeth  show  ; 
These  but  the  trappings  and  the  suits  of  woe." 

A  moment  after,  we  find  him  bewailing,  in  the  heavi- 
ness of  his  spirit,  the  cheerless  aspect  of  all  outward 
things,  and  harboring  thoughts  of  self-destruction.  Sub- 
sequently, in  the  famous  soliloquy,  we  find  him  dwelling 
earnestly  and  anxiously  on  the  subject  of  suicide,  and 
sounding  the  depths  of  the  untried  world,  but  without 
the  aid  of  philosophy  or  religion.  Shakespeare  has  here 
evinced  his  usual  fidelity  to  nature,  in  attributing  to 
Hamlet  sentiments  that  are  entertained  by  almost  every 
person  whose  insanity  is  accompanied  by  much  depres- 
sion, although  such  frequency  of  the  trait  is  far  from 
being  generally  known.  In  this  state  of  mind,  full  of 
grief,  mistrust,  and  weariness  of  life,  he  has  an  inter- 


512    Shakespeare's  delineations  of  insanity. 

view  with  the  ghost  of  his  father,  whose  communications 
are  followed  by  effects  that  might  have  been  readily  an- 
ticipated. In  view  of  the  villany  by  which  he  is  sur- 
rounded, thus  solemnly  and  fearfully  made  known  to 
him,  his  mind  grows  giddy,  and  for  a  moment  he  loses 
all  control  over  his  thoughts.  This  is  evident  from  his 
replies  to  his  friends,  when  asked  what  news  the  ghost 
had  brought  him,  and  which  were  aptly  designated  by 
them  as  "  wild  and  whirling  words."  This  fact  ex- 
plains the  light  and  disrespectful  manner  in  which  he 
speaks,  of  and  to,  the  ghost,  while  administering  the  oath 
of  secrecy  to  his  friends,  —  a  manner  entirely  at  vari- 
ance with  the  respect  and  reverence  he  unquestionably 
entertains  for  his  father.  "  Ha,  ha,  boy  !  sayest  thou 
so  ?  Art  thou  there,  true-penny  ?  "  "  Hie  et  ubique  ! 
then  we'll  shift  our  ground."  "  Well  said,  old  mole  ! 
canst  work  i'  the  earth  so  fast?"  This  is  something 
more  than  the  natural  reaction  of  the  mind  after  experi- 
encing some  powerful  and  extraordinary  emotions.  It 
betrays  the  excitement  of  delirium,  —  the  wandering  of 
a  mind  reeling  under  the  first  stroke  of  disease.  Impos- 
sible though  it  is  to  explain  this  on  any  other  theory,  it 
has  given  but  little  trouble  to  commentators,  who  have 
been  content  to  see  in  it,  as  Dr.  Johnson  did,  in  "  the 
pretended  madness  "  of  Hamlet,  as  he  calls  it,  a  "  cause 
of  much  mirth." 

In  this  scene  he  adjures  his  friends,  if  they  see  him 
bearing  himself  however  strange  or  odd,  "  as  he  might 
perchance  think  meet  to  put  an  antic  disposition  on," 
never  to  let  drop  the  slightest  intimation  of  his  design. 
This  remark,  on  which  the  theory  of  Hamlet's  insanity 
being  feigned  is  mainly  founded,  indicates  at  most  an 
indefinite,  half-formed  resolve  to  accomplish  a  purpose 


shakespeabe's  delineations  of  insanity.    513 

by  simulating  a  disease  that  was  already  overshadowing 
his  spirit  in  all  its  fearful  reality. 

His  visit  to  Ophelia,  as  described  by  herself,  is  gen- 
erally regarded  as  the  first  act  of  the  part  he  had 
determined  to  assume.  Perhaps  there  is  no  single  in. 
cident  of  the  scene  incompatible  with  the  theory  of  sim- 
ulation ;  but  it  is  to  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  indica- 
tions of  derangement  are  here  confined  to  looks,  gest- 
ures, and  demeanor.  Not  a  word  escapes  his  lips  ;  but 
a  language  more  expressive  than  that  of  the  voice 
betrays  the  violence  of  his  emotions.  From  a  mere 
description  of  looks  and  behavior,  it  is  impossible  to 
judge  whether  they  are  the  cunning  device  of  the  simu- 
lator or  the  involuntary  manifestations  of  disease.  She 
alone  who  witnessed  the  scene  could  decide  that  ques- 
tion; and  can  we  believe  that  Ophelia  could  be  deceived 
by  any  possible  play  of  those  features  in  which  she  had 
been  wont  to  read  the  language  of  his  inmost  soul?  Al- 
though we  have  admitted  that  no  single  incident  in  this 
interview  is  incompatible  with  simulation,  yet  when  we 
regard  the  whole  picture  which  his  appearance  pre- 
sented, —  his  pallid  face,  his  piteous  look,  his  knees 
knocking  each  other,  his  hatless  head  and  down-gyved 
stockings,  his  deliberate  perusal  of  Ophelia's  face,  and 
the  sigh,  "  so  piteous  and  profound  as  it  did  seem  to 
shatter  all  his  bulk," — we  feel  as  little  disposed  to 
believe  all  this  to  be  a  well-acted  sham  as  we  should 
the  wail  of  a  new-born  infant,  or  the  flush  that  glows 
on  the  cheek  in  the  fever  of  consumption.  The  skilful 
physiognomist,  the  practised  observer  of  men,  might 
mistake  the  meaning  of  such  an  exhibition  ;  but  not  she 
whose  senses  are  quickened  by  the  vigilant  sympathies 
of  woman's  love.  Considered  then  as  a  picture  of  a 
remarkable  phasis  of  insanity,  we  discern  in  it  some  of 


514    Shakespeare's  delineations  of  insanity. 

those  exquisite  touches  that  always  distinguish  the  gen- 
uine from  the  false  ;  and  to  attribute  these  to  a  mere 
counterfeit  of  the  disease  is  to  show  how  little  we 
are  able  to  appreciate  the  wonderful  fidelity  of  Shake- 
speare's conceptions,  or  his  sense  of  poetical  propriety, 
that  saved  him  from  the  solecism  of  confounding  the 
features  of  the  true  and  the  real  with  those  of  the  spu- 
rious and  false.  Poetically,  dramatically,  and  pathologi- 
cally true,  is  this  exhibition  of  Hamlet  in  his  interview 
with  Ophelia.  We  see  him  in  a  sudden  paroxysm  of 
his  disorder  that  renders  him  heedless  of  his  personal 
appearance,  obeying  the  instinct  of  his  affections,  and 
making  his  accustomed  way  to  her  whose  love  had  shed 
a  radiance  over  his  opening  prospects.  Dark  and  fearful 
images  of  disease  throng  into  his  mind,  degrading  to  an 
uncertain  and  secondary  place  that  which  had  been  en- 
shrined in  its  inmost  sanctuary.  He  is  dimly  conscious 
of  the  spell  by  which  he  has  been  transformed,  and 
clearly  so  of  his  utter  impotency  to  dissolve  it.  In  this 
tumult  of  strange  and  contending  emotions  he  has  lost 
the  power  of  speech,  for  he  had  already  lost  the  power 
to  think  and  feel  like  himself.  He  can  only  gaze  into 
her  face  as  if  to  penetrate  into  the  mystery  that  sur- 
rounds him,  and  then  heaves  a  convulsive  sigh  that 
threatens  to  end  his  being.  Such  is  madness ;  and 
such  scenes  as  this,  and  others  that  subsequently  oc- 
curred between  Hamlet  and  Ophelia,  have  happened 
a  thousand  times  in  real  life,  where  the  insane  lover 
thrusts  himself  into  the  presence  of  his  mistress,  only 
to  frighten  and  distress  her  by  the  painful  exhibition  of 
clouded  intellect  and  disordered  affections. 

In  all  Hamlet's  interviews  with  Polonius,  the  style  of 
his  discourse  is  indicative  of  the  utmost  contempt  for 
the  old  courtier ;  and  he  exhibits  it  in  a  manner  quite 


Shakespeare's  delineations  of  insanity.    515 

characteristic  of  the  insane.  To  the  common  observer, 
such  hearty  and  undisguised  contempt,  such  pungent 
sarcasm,  and  such  relentless  sporting  with  the  old  man's 
servility,  savor  more  of  malice  than  of  madness,  and 
Afford  strong  ground  for  the  theory  that  he  was  acting 
a  part.  But  nothing  is  more  characteristic  of  the  insane 
than  a  fondness  of  annoying  those  whom  they  dislike 
by  ridicule,  raillery,  satire,  vulgarity,  and  every  other 
species  of  abuse  ;  and  in  finding  the  sore  spot  of  their 
victim,  and  adding  venom  to  their  sting,  they  display 
an  aptitude  in  which  they  are  seldom  surpassed  by  the 
sane.  In  this  spirit  Hamlet,  who  looks  upon  Polonius 
as  an  intriguing,  meddlesome  old  man  in  the  interest  of 
the  court,  calls  him  a  fishmonger,  doubts  his  honesty,  rails 
at  old  men,  makes  him  eat  his  own  words,  and  finally 
thanks  him  for  leaving  his  presence.  Had  Hamlet  been 
feigning  insanity,  it  still  would  have  been  hardly  con- 
sistent with  his  character  to  have  treated  in  such  a  style 
the  father  of  one  so  dear  to  him  as  Ophelia,  for  whose 
sake  alone  he  was  entitled  to  receive  from  Hamlet  for- 
bearance, if  not  respect. 

Towards  his  old  friends,  Rosencrantz  and  Guilden- 
stern,  his  discourse  and  manner  are  suitable  to  his  own 
character  and  to  their  ancient  friendship.  He  treats 
them  respectfully,  if  not  cordially ;  discourses  sensibly 
enough  about  the  players,  and  other  indifferent  subjects, 
occasionally  losing  his  self-control  and  uttering  a  remark 
strongly  savoring  of  mental  unsoundness.  "  0  God,  I 
could  be  bounded  in  a  nutshell,  and  count  myself  a  king 
of  infinite  space,  were  it  not  that  I  have  bad  dreams.''' 
It  is  a  well  observed  fact,  though  not  generally  known, 
that  in  a  large  majority  of  cases  the  invasion  of  insanity 
is  accompanied  by  more  or  less  sleeplessness,  and  dis- 
agreeable dreams.     I  have  not  yet  met  with  the  case, 


516    Shakespeare's  delineations  of  insanity. 

however  sudden  the  outbreak  of  the  disease,  in  which 
the  first  symptom  did  not  exist  for  some  time  before  any 
suspicion  of  impending  derangement  was  excited  in  the 
minds  of  the  friends.  Although  strongly  suspecting,  if 
not  knowing,  that  they  are  in  the  interest  of  the  king, 
sent  expressly  for  the  purpose  of  observing  his  move- 
ments, he  makes  no  attempt  to  impress  them  with  a  con- 
viction of  his  madness,  as  might  have  been  expected  had 
he  been  acting  a  part.  For  certainly  if  he  had  been 
anxious  to  spread  the  belief  that  he  was  really  mad,  he 
would  not  have  neglected  so  favorable  an  opportunity 
as  this  interview  with  the  courtiers.  On  the  contrary, 
he  calmty  and  freely  describes  the  state  of  his  feelings, 
as  he  previously  did  to  his  mother.  "  I  have  of  late 
(but  wherefore  I  know  not)  lost  all  my  mirth,  forgone 
all  custom  of  exercises,  and,  indeed,  it  goes  so  heavily 
with  my  disposition,  that  this  goodly  frame,  the  earth, 
seems  to  me  a  sterile  promontory ;  this  most  excellent 
canopy,  the  air,  look  you,  this  brave  o'erhanging  firma- 
ment, this  majestical  roof  fretted  with  golden  fire,  why, 
it  appears  no  other  thing  to  me  than  a  foul  and  pestilent 
congregation  of  vapors."  A  most  faithful  and  vivid 
picture  is  this  of  a  mental  condition  that  is  the  precur- 
sor of  decided  insanity,  —  the  deepening  shadow  of  that 
steadily  advancing  eclipse  by  which  the  understanding 
is  to  be  darkened.  In  Hamlet  the  disease  has  not  yet 
proceeded  so  far  as  to  prevent  him,  in  his  calmer  mo- 
ments, from  recognizing  and  deploring  its  existence, 
though  he  mistakes  its  character.  Like  every  other  per- 
son in  his  condition,  he  is  very  far  from  considering  him- 
self insane,  and  indeed  there  is  no  reason  why  he  should. 
He  entertains  no  delusions  ;  persons  and  things  appear 
to  him  in  their  customary  relations ;  and  for  the  most, 
part  he  well  sustains  his  character  as  a  man  and  a  prince. 


Shakespeare's  delineations  of  insanity.    517 

His  unwonted  excitability  of  temper,  his  occasional  dis- 
regard of  some  minor  propriety  of  life,  the  cloud  which 
envelops  all  outward  things,  depriving  them  of  their 
worth  and  beauty,  —  in  the  eyes  of  the  world,  these  do 
not  constitute  insanity,  and  are  not  incompatible  with  the 
most  perfect  integrity  of  intellect.  Why  then  should  he 
suppose  himself  insane,  or  beginning  to  be  so  ? 

Hamlet  now,  in  the  true  spirit  of  insanity,  upbraids  his 
own  indecision  and  want  of  energy,  doubts  whether  the 
ghost  were  an  honest  ghost,  and  contrives  a  plan,  by 
means  of  the  players,  to  test  the  truth  of  his  declara- 
tions. So  much  ingenuity  and  forecast  as  this  contriv- 
ance evinces  are  not  often  witnessed  among  those  who 
are  popularly  regarded  as  insane;  but  it  must  be  recol- 
lected that  Hamlet  is  yet  in  the  initiatory  stage  of  the 
disease,  before  the  intellect  has  shared  in  that  obliquity 
which  marks  the  manifestations  of  the  moral  senti- 
ments. 

We  next  meet  with  Hamlet  in  his  remarkable  inter- 
view with  Ophelia,  —  remarkable  not  more  for  his  lan- 
guage and  conduct  than  for  the  difficulties  which  it  has 
presented  to  commentators,  to  whom  it  has  proved  a 
perfect  j^ons  asinorum.  Some  regard  his  treatment  of 
Ophelia  as  unnecessarily  harsh  and  unfeeling,  even  for 
the  purposes  of  simulation,  and  in  this  instance,  at  least, 
can  see  no  cause  of  mirth  in  his  pretended  madness.  If 
Homer  sometimes  nods,  so  may  Shakespeare.  Others 
think  that  Hamlet's  love  for  Ophelia  was  but  lukewarm, 
after  all,  and  therefore  he  was  justified  in  treating  her 
in  such  a  wTay  as  to  lacerate  her  feelings  and  outrage 
her  dignity.  The  most  natural  view  of  the  subject  — 
that  which  is  most  readily  and  obviously  suggested  — 
relieves  us  of  all  these  difficulties,  and  reveals  to  us  the 
same  strong  and  earnest  significance  which  appears  in 


518    Shakespeare's  delineations  of  insanity. 

every  other  scene  of  this  play.  If  Hamlet  is  really 
insane,  as  he  presumptively  is,  and  as  we  have  much 
reason  to  believe  that  he  is,  then  his  conduct  is  what 
might  have  been  naturally  expected.  It  discloses  an 
interesting  feature  in  mental  pathology,  —  the  change 
which  insanity  brings  over  the  warmest  affections  of  the 
heart,  whereby  the  golden  chains  wrought  by  love  and 
kindness  are  utterly  dissolved,  and  the  forsaken  and 
desolate  spirit,  though  it  continues  among  men,  is  no 
longer  of  them.  Such  aberrations  from  the  normal  course 
of  the  affections  were  closely  observed  and  studied  by 
Shakespeare,  who  saw  in  them  that  kind  of  poetical 
interest  which  master-spirits  like  his  are  apt  to  discern 
in  the  highest  truths  of  philosophy.  The  frequency 
with  which  he  introduces  insanity  into  his  plays  shows 
that  it  was  with  him  a  favorite  subject  of  contemplation ; 
and  from  the  manner  in  which  he  deals  with  it,  it  is 
equally  obvious  that  he  regarded  it.  as  not  only  worth 
the  attention  of  the  philanthropist  and  physician,  but  as 
full  of  instruction  to  the  philosopher  an$l  the  poet.  He 
perceived  that  many  of  its  phenomena  were  calculated 
to  touch  the  warmest  sympathies  of  our  nature,  and 
therefore  peculiarly  suitable  for  producing  dramatic 
effect.  If  in  this  feature  he  differs  from  every  other 
poet,  it  is  not  from  that  fondness  for  dwelling  on  the 
morbid  anatomy  of  the  mind,  which  is  the  offspring  of  a 
corrupt  and  jaded  taste,  but  from  a  hearty  appreciation 
of  all  the  works  and  ways  of  nature,  and  a  ready  sym- 
pathy with  every  movement  of  the  human  soul. 

In  no  instance  are  these  views  so  strongly  confirmed 
as  in  this  remarkable  scene.  The  gradually  increasing 
excitement,  the  frequent,  sudden  starting  from  the  sub- 
ject, his  denial  of  his  former  affection,  and  the  general 
air  of  extravagance  and  perversity  that  pervades  the 


shakespeaee's  delineations  of  insanity.    519 

whole  scene,  —  all  indicate  a  most  thorough  mastery  of 
the  phenomena  of  insanity,  and  the  most  consummate 
skill  in  combining  and  displaying  them  in  action.  Es- 
pecially is  this  obvious  in  the  rapid  transition  from  the 
calmness  and  courtesy  with  which  Hamlet  first  addresses 
Ophelia,  to  the  storm  of  contending  feelings  which  im- 
mediately after  ensues.  He  has  just  been  speculating 
on  themes  of  the  deepest  moment,  endeavoring  to  pene- 
trate through  the  gloom  that  veils  the  future  from  the 
present,  when  she  passes  before  him.  The  sight  of  her 
awakens  a  healthy  and  tender  emotion. 

"  Soft  you,  now  ! 
The  fair  Ophelia.  — Nymph,  in  thy  orisons 
Be  all  my  sins  remembered." 

She  immediately  takes  the  opportunity  to  return  him 
the  gifts  she  had  received  from  him,  with  an  intimation 
that  he  had  ceased  to  love  her.  Quick  as  thought,  the 
current  of  his  feelings  is  changed,  and  the  demons  of 
mistrust,  jealousy,  and  anger  run  riot  in  his  bosom.  The 
courtesy  of  the  gentleman  and  the  tenderness  of  the 
lover  are  forgotten,  and  words  of  gall  and  bitterness  are 
poured  out  upon  the  gentle  being  whom  he  loved  with 
more  than  the  love  of  forty  thousand  brothers.  I  need 
not  remind  those  who  are  at  all  conversant  with  the 
insane,  how  very  natural  this  is  ;  and  how  unnatural  it 
would  have  been  in  Hamlet,  had  he  been  acting  a  part, 
is  sufficiently  obvious  from  the  disposition  of  critics  to 
regard  it  as  a  fault  in  the  author.  The  fury  and  extrava- 
gance of  mania,  the  moodiness  of  melancholy,  he  might 
successfully  mimic ;  but  to  do  violence  to  his  affections, 
to  desecrate  and  trample  upon  the  idol  that  had  been 
enshrined  in  his  heart  of  hearts,  —  this  was  beyond  the 
power  of  mimicry. 

In  Hamlet's   remarkable  interview  with  his  mother, 


520     SHAKESPEARE'S   DELINEATIONS    OF   INSANITY. 

his  discourse  is  rational  and  coherent  enough;  but  it  is 
pervaded  by  that  wild  energy,  that  scorching  sarcasm, 
that  overwhelming  outpouring  of  bitter  truths,  which, 
though  not  incompatible  with  perfect  soundness  of  mind, 
are  exceedingly  characteristic  of  madness.  Well  might 
she  say, — 

"  These  words  like  daggers  enter  in  mine  ears." 
That  his  mind  is  in  a  state  of  fearful  commotion,  is 
also  shown  by  the  reappearance  of  the  ghost,  which,  in 
this  instance,  is  present  only  to  the  mental  eye.  His  air 
and  manner  as  noticed  by  his  mother  are  strongly  ex- 
pressive of  the  inward  emotion,  and  such  as  the  most 
consummate  actor  could  scarcely  imitate. 

"  Alas,  how  is't  with  you  ? 
•   That  you  do  bend  your  eyes  on  vacancy, 
And  with  the  incorporal  air  do  hold  discourse  ? 
Forth  at  your  eyes  your  spirits  wildly  peep, 
And  as  the  sleeping  soldiers  in  the  alarm, 
Your  bedded  hair,  like  life  in  excrements, 
Starts  up,  and  stands  on  end." 

When  she  tells  him  that  the  image  he  beholds  is  the 
very  coinage  of  his  brain,  resulting  from  ecstasy,  like 
most  insane  men  he  repels  the  idea  of  being  mad,  and 
offers  a  test  of  his  soundness,  which,  if  not  always  con- 
clusive, indicates,  at  least,  on  the  poet's  part,  a  close 
observation  of  the  operations  of  the  insane  mind. 

"  It  is  not  madness 
That  I  have  uttered  :  bring  me  to  the  test, 
And  I  the  matter  will  reword ;  which  madness 
Would  gambol  from." 

This  test  was  once  successfully  applied  by  Sir  Henry 
Halford  to  a  patient  laboring  under  some  degree  of  men- 
tal disorder,  who  insisted  on  making  his  will  which  had 
been  already  prepared  according  to  his  instructions,  and 
to  the  several  items  of  which,  when  read  to  him,  he  dis- 


SHAKESPEARE' S   DELEGATIONS    OF   INSANITY.      521 

tinctly  assented.  In  order  to  determine  the  real  condition 
of  his  mind  on  the  subject,  Sir  Henry  proposed  to  apply 
Shakespeare's  test;  but  instead  of  rewording  the  matter 
precisely  as  he  had  just  heard  it,  he  made  a  very  differ- 
ent disposition  of  most  of  his  property.  In  most  cases 
of  acute  mania  attended  with  much  excitement,  as  well 
as  in  that  form  of  mental  impairment  called  dementia, 
the  patient  would  be  unable,  no  doubt,  to  repeat  what  he 
had  just  before  deliberately  uttered ;  but  in  such  cases 
as  Hamlet's,  where  some  of  the  mental  operations  are 
perfectly  well  conducted,  the  power  of  repeating  cor- 
rectly one's  own  statements  is  not  necessarily  lost,  and 
consequently  is  no  proof  of  sanity  in  doubtful  cases. 

Hamlet's  conduct  at  the  grave  of  Ophelia  was  madness 
in  its  purest  state.  The  unexpected  news  of  her  death, 
the  sight  of  her  funeral  solemnities,  the  passionate  lan- 
guage of  her  brother,  are  too  much  for  his  self-control, 
and  he  gives  vent  to  his  feelings  in  the  most  extravagant 
expressions  of  grief  and  defiance.  He  is  truly  in  a  tow- 
ering passion,  but  it  is  the  passion  of  a  madman,  without 
end  or  aim,  and  justified  by  no  sufficient  provocation. 
The  apology  which  he  afterwards  offers  to  Laertes,  beg- 
ging him  to  attribute  the  impropriety  of  his  conduct 
to  madness,  deserves  a  moment's  attention.  It  is  one  of 
the  rarest  things  in  the  world  for  a  madman  to  admit 
the  existence  of  his  own  insanity.  It  has  been  already 
remarked,  however,  that  Hamlet's  disease  is  yet  in  its 
initiatory  stage  where  paroxysms  of  wildness  and  fury  are 
intercalated  with  intervals  of  calmness  and  self-control 
when,  through  the  cloud  that  envelops  his  spirit,  he  is 
able  to  discern  his  true  relations  to  others,  and  the  occa- 
sional influence  of  disease  over  his  thoughts  and  actions. 
Bearing  this  fact  in  mind,  we  shall  hesitate  to  attribute 
the   above    apology    to    a   misapprehension,  on    Shake- 


522    shakespeahe's  delineations  of  insanity. 

speare's  part,  of  the  true  characters  of  insanity.  On  the 
contrary,  it  evinces  a  most  delicate  perception  of  its 
various  forms,  which  leads  him  to  introduce  a  feature 
that  the  simulator  would  have  scarcely  ventured  to 
assume. 

The  final  event,  the  crowning  catastrophe  of  the  piece, 
most  aptly  finishes  the  story  of  Hamlet's  irresolution, 
his  vacillation,  his  forereaching  plans,  his  inadequate 
performance.  The  nearest  object  of  his  heart  —  the 
revenge  of  his  father's  wrongs  —  is  at  last  accomplished, 
but  by  means  of  a  contrivance  he  had  no  part  in  ef- 
fecting. 

It  may  be  thought,  perhaps,  that  in  deciding  the 
question  whether  Hamlet's  madness  be  real  or  feigned, 
some  weight  should  be  allowed  to  the  original  history 
in  which  he  is  represented  as  having  actually  simulated 
the  disease.  This  fact  is  certainly  entitled  to  some  con- 
sideration, but  my  own  reflections  upon  it  have  rather 
confirmed  than  weakened  the  view  I  have  taken  of  the 
subject.  Shakespeare  was  so  much  in  the  habit  of  varying 
from  the  tale  or  history  that  formed  the  groundwork  of 
his  plays,  that  this  fact  alone  would  deter  us,  in  a  doubtful 
case,  from  expecting  that  any  particular  trait  or  event  in 
the  former  would  be  faithfully  represented  in  the  latter. 
In  tracing  the  history  of  his  plays,  however,  we  find  him 
acting  upon  a  general  principle  that  should  not  be  over- 
looked in  settling  a  difficulty  like  the  present.  This  was, 
that  he  never  hesitated  to  vary  from  the  original  when- 
ever the  higher  objects  of  the  drama  required  it.  It 
could  have  been  scarcely  otherwise,  indeed,  if  his  own 
work  were  to  be  distinguished  from  its  prototype  by 
marks  of  a  nobler  lineage.  The  puerilities  of  the  old 
story-tellers  were  to  be  exchanged  for  incidents  of 
commanding  interest,  the  common  natures  that  figured 


Shakespeare's  delineations  of  insanity.    523 

in  their  narratives  were  to  be  transformed  into  more 
ethereal  spirits,  and  their  lame  and  impotent  conclusions 
were  to  give  place  to  lessons  of  ever  enduring  truths. 
Thus,  in  the  present  case,  the  wronged  prince  who  is 
undistinguished  by  any  mark  of  superiority  from  the 
common  herd  of  kings'  sons,  and  who  resorts  to  an  arti- 
fice in  order  to  revenge  his  wrongs,  is  to  be  transformed 
into 

"  The  expectancy  and  rose  of  the  fair  State, 
The  glass  of  fashion,  and  the  mould  of  form." 

The  shining  worth  and  dignity  of  such  a  character 
would  have  been  essentially  compromised  by  an  impost- 
ure, however  justified  by  the  end  ;  while  the  example  of 
a  refined  and  noble  spirit  staggering  under  the  weight 
of  a  great  responsibility,  with  powers  crippled  by  the 
intrusion  of  disease, — at  one  time,  a  dangerous  maniac 
rushing  recklessly  into  crime ;  at  another,  discharging 
offices  of  friendship  and  uttering  words  of  profoundest 
wisdom, — is  a  spectacle  worthy  of  men  and  gods.  Indeed, 
the  principle  in  question  is  so  common  in  Shakespeare, 
and  its  application  in  the  present  case  so  obvious,  that 
it  appears  to  me  scarcely  necessary  to  strengthen  the 
position  by  additional  arguments. 

In  this  play,  for  the  first  and  only  time,  Shakespeare 
has  ventured  on  representing  the  two  principal  charac- 
ters as  insane.  His  wonderful  success  in  managing  such 
intractable  materials,  the  world  has  long  acknowledged 
and  admired.  They  are  never  in  the  way,  and  their  in- 
sanity is  never  brought  forward  in  order  to  enliven  the 
interest  by  a  display  of  that  kind  of  energy  and  extrav- 
agance that  flows  from  morbid  mental  excitement.  On 
the  contrary,  it  assists  in  the  development  of  events, 
and  bears  its  part  in  the  great  movement  in  which  the 
actors  are  hurried  along  as  if  by  an  inevitable  decree  of 


524    Shakespeare's  delineations  of  insanity. 

fate.  Herein  lies  the  distinguishing  merit  of  Shake- 
speare's delineations  of  insanity.  While  other  poets 
have  made  use  of  it  chiefly  to  diversify  the  action  of  the 
play,  and  to  excite  the  vulgar  curiosity  by  its  strange 
and  striking  phenomena,  he  has  made  it  the  occasion  of 
unfolding  many  a  deep  truth  in  mental  science,  of  dis- 
playing those  motley  combinations  of  thought  that  are 
the  offspring  of  disease,  and  of  tracing  those  mysterious 
associations  by  which  the  ideas  of  the  insane  mind  are 
connected.  Few  men,  I  apprehend,  are  so  familiar  with 
those  diversities  of  mental  character  that  are,  in  any  de- 
gree, the  result  of  disease,  as  not  to  find  the  sphere  of 
their  ideas  on  this  subject  somewhat  enlarged  by  the 
careful  study  of  Shakespeare. 

Ophelia  is  one  of  those  exquisite  creations  of  the 
poet's  fancy,  whose  earthly  types  occasionally  cross  our 
path  in  the  course  of  our  sublunary  pilgrimage.  Like 
them  she  wins  all  hearts,  but,  too  delicate  to  encounter 
the  world's  rude  shocks,  she  is  unable  to  survive  the 
wreck  of  her  affections  ;  and,  like  them,  her  brief  his- 
tory consists  in  being  seen,  and  loved,  and  mourned. 
The  morning  of  her  days  which  had  been  illumined  by 
the  light  of  love  and  parental  affection  had  been  early 
clouded  by  the  death  of  her  father  and  the  misfortunes 
of  her  lover ;  life  had  no  longer  any  joys  in  store,  and 
in  mercy  she  is  spared  all  further  afflictions,  by  the 
loss  of  reason  and  a  premature  death.  Wisely  has  the 
poet  abbreviated  the  duration  of  her  madness.  The  pro- 
longed exhibition  of  this  afflictive  disease  in  one  so 
gentle  and  lovely  would  have  distressed  the  mind  of  the 
beholder,  in  a  manner  unfavorable  to  dramatic  effect.  We 
see  enough  to  understand  that  she  is  no  longer  conscious 
of  her  sufferings ;  and  after  listening  to  the  snatches  of 
songs  that  flit  through  her  memory,  with  the  same  kind 


Shakespeare's  delineations  of  insanity.    525 

of  melancholy  interest  with  which  we  hear  the  sighing 
of  the  autumnal  breeze  through  the  limbs  and  leaves  of 
the  trees,  we  are  willing  that  the  finisher  of  all  earthly 
sorrows  should  come.  There  is  no  method  in  her  mad- 
ness ;  no  quips  and  cranks  of  a  morbidly  active  inge- 
nuity surprise  and  gratify  the  curious  beholder,  and  no 
bursts  of  passion  such  as  madness  alone  can  excite  fall 
on  his  astonished  ear.  Like  one  who  walks  in  his  sleep, 
her  mind  is  still  busy,  but  the  sources  of  its  activity  are 
within.  Heedless  of  everything  else,  her  mind  wanders 
among  the  confused  and  broken  recollections  of  the  past, 
deserted  by  the  glorious  light  of  the  Divinity  that  stirs 
within  us,  but  which  is  soon  to  be  rekindled  with  un- 
quenchable brightness. 

In  the  character  of  Macbeth,  Shakespeare  has  exhib- 
ited a  mental  phenomenon  of  a  pathological  kind  which 
he  seems  to  have  correctly  understood,  and  in  that  re- 
spect was  greatly  in  advance  of  the  current  notions  of 
his  own  and  perhaps  the  present  times.  It  has  been 
already  observed,  that,  when  the  brain  is  morbidly  ex- 
cited, previous  impressions,  even  some  that  may  long 
since  have  been  forgotten,  are  often  so  distinctly  and 
vividly  recalled  as  to  appear  to  have  an  objective  exist- 
ence. This  activity  of  the  perceptive  organs  is  not 
confined  to  madness,  but  may  also  occur  whenever  the 
nervous  system  is  unusually  excited  by  protracted  watch- 
ing, by  errors  of  diet,  by  long  and  anxious  meditation,  by 
powerful  emotions,  or  by  the  presence  of  other  diseases. 
In  this  condition,  the  ordinary  relations  between  the 
mind  within  and  the  world  without  are  quite  reversed. 
The  imaginary  takes  the  place  of  the  real ;  the  inward  is 
no  longer  reflected  from  the  outward,  but  the  latter  be- 
comes the  mere  shadow  of  the  former.     Thus  in  Macbeth 


526    Shakespeare's  delineations  of  insanity. 

the  suggestions  of  bis  own  unprincipled  ambition,  the 
predictions  of  the  weird  sisters,  and  the  goading  of  bis 
wife,  kept  the  prize  of  royalty  constantly  before  his  eyes, 
only  to  be  won,  however,  by  the  foulest  treachery  and 
violence.  This  one  thought  takes  possession  of  his 
mind,  absorbs  his  whole  being,  and  so  often  and  intently 
does  he  revolve  the  only  means  for  accomplishing  his 
purpose,  that  finally  the  very  instrument  thereof  appears 
before  him  in  a  visible  shape.  He  sees  a  bloody  dagger 
with  its  handle  towards  him ;  and  so  clear  is  the  image, 
that  nothing  less  than  the  sense  of  touch  convinces  him 
that  it  is  merely  a  dagger  of  the  mind,  "  proceeding  from 
a  heat-oppressed  brain.7'  The  deed  was  done  and  the 
prize  was  gained  ;  but,  tortured  almost  to  distraction  by 
the  most  painful  apprehensions,  he  sought  in  vain  for 
security  and  repose,  in  the  commission  of  fresh  crimes. 
In  this  state  of  agitation  induced  by  his  bloody  career, 
the  murder  of  Banquo  was  more  than  sufficient  to  re- 
produce that  morbid  activity  of  the  perceptive  organs, 
which  invested  the  images  of  the  mind  with  visible 
forms,  and  gave  them  an  outward  existence.  The  image 
of  his  slaughtered  brother-in-arms,  so  foully  taken  off, 
glides  into  the  banqueting-room  and  seats  itself  at  the 
table.  But  the  suggestions  of  reason  are  no  longer  able 
to  correct  the  error  of  sense.  Not  more  real  to  Macbeth 
are  the  forms  of  his  invited  guests,  than  is  the  dreaded 
image  in  his  own  seat ;  for  it  shakes  at  him  its  gory 
locks  and  glares  upon  him  with  its  vacant  eyes.  His 
mind  is  driven  from  its  propriety,  he  forgets  his  situa- 
tion and  relations,  and,  carried  away  by  the  force  of  the 
hallucination,  he  reveals  to  the  company  the  tremen- 
dous secret  which  they  should  have  been  the  last  to 
learn. 

The  reader  scarcely  needs  to  be  told  how  the  true 


527 


meaning  of  this  phenomenon  is  perverted  and  its  terrible 
power  worse  than  lost,  —  even  made  ridiculous,  —  in  its 
representation  on  the  stage,  by  the  introduction  of  a 
real  ghost  as  visible  to  everybody  else  as  to  Macbeth. 
The  absurdity  of  the  whole  matter  is  heightened  by  the 
guests  pretending  not  to  see  what  is  plainly  before  their 
eyes,  and  wondering  what  should  so  startle  their  royal 
host.  This  puerile  contrivance  is  but  a  sorry  compliment 
to  the  intelligence  of  the  audience,  who,  if  they  could 
once  forget  the  prescriptive  usages  of  the  stage,  would 
be  infinitely  more  impressed  by  a  proper  representa- 
tion of  the  scene.  The  sight  of  a  king  springing  from 
the  banquet-table,  in  the  midst  of  his  lords  and  nobles, 
gazing  on  vacancy,  with  horror  and  alarm  depicted  in 
his  countenance,  addressing  to  the  imaginary  object  be- 
fore him  words  of  reproach  and  defiance,  is  calculated 
to  make  a  far  deeper  impression  on  the  beholder  than 
the  trumpery  contrivance  of  an  actual  ghost.  With  the 
first  appearance  of  the  ghost  in  Hamlet,  however,  the 
case  is  very  different.  In  Macbeth  it  is  the  poet's  object 
to  exhibit,  by  means  of  the  ghost,  the  power  of  conscious 
guilt  upon  an  over-active  brain ;  while  in  Hamlet  he 
merely  makes  use  of  a  vulgar  superstition  for  bringing 
out  a  fact  necessary  to  the  action  of  the  play.  How 
clearly  Shakespeare  appreciated  this  difference,  is  also 
evident  from  the  manner  in  which  the  ghost  is  afterwards 
introduced  during  the  interview  between  Hamlet  and  his 
mother.  This  is  meant  to  be  regarded  merely  as  a  men- 
tal apparition,  —  a  previous  impression  reproduced  in 
consequence  of  the  inordinate  nervous  excitement  under 
which  he  is  suffering  at  the  moment,  —  because,  though 
as  distinctly  visible  to  Hamlet  as  the  actual  ghost  in  the 
first  act,  it  is,  unlike  that,  visible  to  no  one  else.  True, 
he  speaks  to  it,  and  the  apparition  answers,  but  its  words 


528    Shakespeare's  delineations  of  insanity. 

are  obviously  intended  to  be  audible  only  to  him,  for  his 
mother  hears  no  voice,  and  sees  no  form. 

The  pathological  correctness  of  Macbeth's  character 
is  made  still  more  manifest  by  attributing  to  him  a  hal- 
lucination of  another  sense,  —  that  of  hearing.  In  that 
matchless  interview  between  him  and  his  wife  immedi- 
ately after  Duncan's  murder,  he  declares  that,  among 
other  circumstances  attending  that  fearful  deed,  he  heard 
a  voice  cry, 

"  Sleep  no  more  ! 
Glamis  hath  murdered  sleep  ;  and  therefore  Cawdor 
Shall  sleep  no  more,  —  Macbeth  shall  sleep  no  more  ! " 

The  cerebral  excitement  produced  by  the  circum- 
stances of  the  murder  has  so  sharpened  the  sensibil- 
ity of  the  auditory  organs,  that  the  slightest  sound,  or,  it 
may  be,  even  the  very  thoughts  of  his  soul,  ring  through 
his  ears  in  words  of  unmistakable  meaning. 

We  may  admire,  while  it  would  not  be  very  easy  to 
explain,  the  wonderful  sagacity  of  Shakespeare  in  con- 
ceiving that  true  theory  of  apparitions,  which  now,  after 
more  than  two  centuries,  is  just  beginning  to  be  adopted 
by  scientific  men. 

In  the  character  of  Lady  Macbeth,  the  poet  has  exhib- 
ited a  mental  condition  of  a  most  curious  and  interesting 
kind,  which,  though  not  strictly  insanity,  is  unquestion- 
ably of  a  pathological  nature.  The  successive  crimes 
into  which  her  husband's  ambition  has  plunged  him  pro- 
duce in  her  a  state  of  mental  disquietude  that  under- 
mines her  weaker  constitution  and  eventually  occasions 
her  death.  The  circumstances  connected  with  the  mur- 
der of  Duncan  are  stamped  upon  her  brain,  as  if  with  a 
hot  iron,  and  there  they  remain  in  characters  of  fire,  not 
even  to  be  temporarily  effaced  by  sleep.  To  such  a 
pitch  does  the  nervous  excitement  increase,  that  in  sleep 


Shakespeare's  delineations  of  insanity.    529 

she  rises  from  her  bed,  and  acts  over  her  own  part  in 
the  bloody  scene.     Again  she  reproaches  her  husband 
with  his  irresolution,  wonders  that  the  old  man  should 
have  so  much  blood  in  him,  endeavors  in  vain  to  wash  the 
spots  from  her  hands,  and  is  startled  by  a  knocking  at  the 
gate.     The  wound  is  too  deep  to  be  healed  ;  no  medicine 
can  be  found  to  cleanse  the  bosom  of  such  perilous  stuff, 
and  nature  finally  succumbs  under  the  weight  of  bodily 
exhaustion  and  mental  anguish.    Within  the  whole  round 
of  human  wretchedness,  there  is  not  a  case  more  deplor- 
able than  that  of  the  man  or  woman  who,  with  the  moral 
depravity  adequate  to  the  commission  of  great  crimes, 
wants  the  nervous  hardihood  capable  of  sustaining  the 
shock  they  give  to  the  mental  constitution.    Such  a  case 
has  Shakespeare  presented  in  Lady  Macbeth,  and  with 
so  much   power  and   truth   that   no   lapse   of   time,  no 
change  of  human  condition,  will  ever  weaken  its  effect. 
To  be  convinced  of  the  unapproachable  preeminence 
of  Shakespeare  in  the  delineation  of  insanity,  we  have 
only  to  compare  him  with  the  poetical  luminaries  of  his 
own  generation.    Fletcher,  who  is  generally  regarded  as 
inferior  to  none   of  them,  has  represented  one   of  his 
female  characters  —  the  jailer's  daughter  in  "The  Two 
Xoble  Kinsmen  " —  as  going  mad  from  love.    Some  scenes 
are  a  feeble  imitation  of  Ophelia,  and  the  whole  effort 
probably  originated  in  a  feeling  of  emulation  excited  by 
that  part.     But  how  inferior  to  that  exquisite  creation, 
as  a  specimen  of  mental  pathology,  or  an  expression  of 
poetical  taste  !     Both  her  conduct  and  conversation  are 
crazy  enough,  no  doubt.    Not  a  single  word  nor  act,  sep- 
arately  considered,  is  inconsistent   with  real   insanity  ; 
but  there  is  a  visible  straining  for  effect,  a  certain  ex- 
travagance of  thought,  a  perpetual   recurrence  to  the 
cause  of  her  disorder,  an  abruptness  in  changing  the 

34 


530    Shakespeare's  delineations  of  insanity. 

train  of  reflection,  far  more  characteristic  of  simulated 
than  real  insanity.  The  author  has  committed  the  popu- 
lar error  of  supposing  that  the  lunatic  is  ever  dwelling 
on  the  cause  of  his  calamity,  and  hence  the  love-cracked 
damsel  utters  the  name  and  expatiates  upon  the  perfec- 
tions of  her  lover  at  every  breath.  It  has  already  been 
remarked  that  in  acute  mania,  if  we  except  the  initiatory 
stage  when  reason  is  not  quite  driven  from  her  throne, 
the  patient  seldom  even  alludes  to  the  events  connected 
with  the  origin  of  his  disease.  Lear,  for  instance,  talks 
much  of  the  ingratitude  of  his  daughters,  but  not  after 
he  becomes  raving  mad.  The  manner  in  which  Fletcher 
has  executed  his  task,  shows  how  little  he  was  inspired 
by  those  lofty  conceptions  of  the  true  object  of  dramatic 
representations  of  insanity,  which  impart  to  Shake- 
speare's insane  characters  inexhaustible  interest  and 
instruction.  To  put  crazy  speeches  into  the  mouth  of  a 
person,  and  send  him  capering  through  the  fields,  is 
an  easy  matter,  —  any  tolerably  shrewd  attendant  in  a 
lunatic  hospital  might  do  as  much.  But  to  observe 
through  a  succession  of  scenes  the  method  that  is  in 
madness,  to  make  its  various  phases  consistent  one  with 
another  and  preserve  the  individuality  of  the  character 
through  them  all,  and,  more  than  all  else,  to  present  a 
picture  calculated  not  only  to  excite  emotions  of  sym- 
pathy with  physical  distress,  but  to  strike  the  imagi- 
nation and  gratify  the  poetical  sentiment,  —  this  is  the 
work  of  the  highest  order  of  genius  alone.  In  the  hands 
of  inferior  writers,  insanity  is  too  much  regarded  as  an 
absolute  condition  in  which  all  personal  distinctions  are 
annulled  and  all  traces  of  the  individual's  former  self 
effaced.  But  not  so  with  Shakespeare.  Lear,  while 
forming  the  prominent  figure  in  the  motley  group  that 
wandered  in  the  forest,  was  no  less  Lear  than  when 


Shakespeare's  delineations  of  insanity.    531 

seated  on  a  throne  and  dispensing  favors  to  his  depen- 
dants. The  tempest  of  fury  exhibited  by  Hamlet  at  the 
grave  of  Ophelia  is  not  inconsistent  with  the  character 
of  the  speculating,  irresolute  prince  who  mournfully  so- 
liloquizes on  his  infirmity  of  purpose,  and  quails  before 
the  solemn  commission  he  has  taken  upon  himself  to 
perform.  Considered  in  a  still  higher  aspect,  —  as  a 
creation  of  poetical  art,  —  we  see  in  the  jailer's  daugh- 
ter none  of  those  shadowy  reminiscences  of  youthful 
joys,  none  of  those  delicate  allusions  to  the  subject  of  love, 
none  of  those  flitting  images  of  purity  and  peace,  none 
of  those  bursting  throbs  of  filial  affection,  —  not  one,  in 
short,  of  those  exquisite  touches  that  throw  a  melan- 
choly charm  over  the  madness  of  Ophelia.  She  is  gross, 
carnal,  of  the  earth,  earthy,  and  her  imagination  wanders 
into  forbidden  paths.  She  is  but  a  poor  mad  woman 
whom  idle  boys  would  gather  around  in  the  streets,  and 
humane  people  would  wish  to  place  in  a  hospital.  What- 
ever truth  there  may  be  in  the  opinion  some  critics  have 
entertained,  that  Shakespeare  had  any  part  in  the 
writing  of  this  play,  it  is  very  certain  that  this  charac- 
ter, at  least,  received  not  a  single  finishing  stroke  from 
his  pen. 

In  this  review  of  Shakespeare's  delineations  of  insan- 
ity, I  trust  I  have  made  it  appear  in  some  measure  how 
their  wonderful  fidelity  to  nature  renders  them  not  only 
valuable  as  pathological  illustrations,  but  exceedingly 
effective  in  producing  a  dramatic  impression.  Great  as 
he  is  in  every  other  attribute  of  the  poetical  character, 
yet  in  this  department  of  the  art  he  seems  to  be  with- 
out a  rival.  No  other  writer,  unless  it  may  be  Sir  Wal- 
ter Scott,  has  made  the  slightest  approach  to  his  success. 
In  several  of  this  writer's  novels,  the  workings  of  a  dis- 
ordered mind  are  displayed  with  the  hand  of  a  master 


and  that  too  with  a  degree  of  pathological  accuracy 
which  ordinary  men  would  hardly  acquire  by  years  of 
observation  within  the  precincts  of  a  hospital.  But  the 
novelist  possesses  an  advantage  over  the  poet  in  the 
broader  limits  within  which  he  may  exercise  his  art, 
untrammelled  by  the  restrictions  imposed  upon  the  other 
by  severer  rules  of  composition  and  the  comparative 
brevity  of  his  efforts. 

I  have  already  intimated  that  in  his  knowledge  of  in- 
sanity Shakespeare  was  greatly  in  advance  of  his  own 
and  succeeding  generations,  and  that  this  was  owing,  not 
to  any  superior  advantages  he  possessed  for  the  study  of 
the  disease,  but  to  an  extraordinary  power  of  observation 
which,  more  than  any  other  mental  attribute,  perhaps, 
deserves  to  be  considered  as  the  true  inspiration  of 
genius.  It  needs  but  a  glance  at  the  common  views  of 
insanity  that  prevailed  in  his  own,  and  even  later  times, 
not  merely  among  the  rude  and  uneducated,  but  among 
men  of  distinguished  names,  to  show  how  little  they 
evince  of  his  profound  science  of  mind.  By  a  profession 
which  has  always  numbered  in  its  ranks  a  large  proportion 
of  the  luminaries  of  the  age,  the  insane  generally,  with  the 
exception  of  such  as  were  actually  raving  or  reduced  to 
a  state  of  idiocy,  were  regarded  as  having  reason  enough 
to  enable  them  to  conduct  with  tolerable  propriety,  and 
made  responsible  for  their  actions  to  a  degree  that  would 
startle  the  criminalists  of  our  own  time,  ready  as  most  of 
them  are  to  look  upon  the  plea  of  insanity  as  the  last  re- 
sort of  ingenious  counsel.  Sir  Matthew  Hale  declared, 
many  years  after  Lear  was  written,  that  insanity  affects 
only  the  strength  and  capacity  of  the  mind,  and  upon 
this  idea  he  has  actually  founded  a  test  of  responsibility. 
"  Such  a  person  as  laboring  under  melancholy  distempers 
hath  yet  ordinarily  as  great  understanding  as  ordinarily 


Shakespeare's  delineations  of  insanity.    533 

a  child  of  fourteen  years,  is  such  a  person  as  may  be 
guilty  of  felony  or  treason.''  These  views,  it  is  true, 
belong  to  a  province  of  insanity  somewhat  remote  from 
that  which  engaged  Shakespeare's  attention  ;  but  there 
can  be  no  difficulty  in  inferring,  from  his  delineations  of 
the  disease,  in  what  light  he  would  have  regarded  them. 
Can  we  suppose,  for  instance,  that  if  the  question  of  the 
responsibility  of  Hamlet  for  the  killing  of  Polonius  had 
been  referred  to  him,  he  would  have  pronounced  him 
guilty  of  murder  in  the  first  degree,  because  he  possessed 
more  understanding  than  a  child  fourteen  years  old  ? 
Had  the  great  jurist,  in  forming  his  opinions  on  this  sub- 
ject, meditated  upon  the  pictures  of  Shakespeare  as  well 
as  the  statements  of  Lyttleton  and  Coke,  it  would  have 
been  better  for  his  own  reputation  and  better  for  the 
cause  of  humanity.  Would  that  we  were  able  to  say  that 
the  courts  of  our  own  times  have  entirely  avoided  his 
error,  and  studied  the  influence  of  insanity  upon  human 
conduct  more  by  the  light  of  Shakespeare  and  of  nature 
than  of  metaphysical  dogmas  and  legal  maxims. 


ILLUSTRATIONS   OF  INSANITY   BY   DISTIN- 
GUISHED  ENGLISH  WRITERS. 


Next  to  Shakespeare,  no  English  writer  has  been  so  suc- 
cessful in  making  insanity  conducive  to  the  exhibition 
of  character  under  strong  and  impressive  aspects,  as 
Sir  Walter  Scott.  This,  indeed,  might  have  been  ex- 
pected, from  the  fact  that  no  other  has  partaken  so 
largely  of  some  of  the  distinguishing  attributes  of 
Shakespeare's  genius,  —  his  faithful  and  profound  ob- 
servation, his  skilful  appropriation  of  its  results,  and, 
above  all,  his  hearty  appreciation  of  every  striking 
or  extraordinary  form  of  mental  manifestations.  The 
same  breathing,  speaking  lineaments,  the  same  life-like 
touches  that  impart  an  inexpressible  charm  to  his 
characters,  are  no  less  obvious  in  those  whom  he  has 
represented  as  victims  of  mental  disorder.  We  scarcely 
need  to  criticise  their  fidelity :  we  are  assured  of  it  by 
intuitive  evidence.  Any  one  who  doubts  it  would  be 
ready  to  pass  his  hands  over  the  face  of  a  living  man  to 
satisfy  himself  that  it  was  real  flesh,  and  not  an  imita- 
tion in  wax. 

Scott's  best  representation  of  madness  is  unquestionably 
Madge  Wildfire,  in  the  "  Heart  of  Mid  Lothian."  She  is 
an  admirable  illustration  of  a  form  of  chronic  insanity  in 
which  the  mental  manifestations  are  distinguished  less 


BY   SIE    WALTER   SCOTT.  535 

by  delusions  and  gross  incoherence,  than  by  a  certain 
irregularity  and  unsteadiness  not  easily  described.  The 
general  condition  is  aptly  characterized  by  the  remark 
applied  to  Madge,  that  her  "  mind,  like  a  raft  upon  a 
lake,  was  agitated  and  driven  about  at  random  by  each 
fresh  impulse."  For  a  moment  or  two  she  pursues  a 
train  of  reflections  with  tolerable  coherence,  when 
some  fanciful  or  grotesque  idea,  some  incident  in  her 
experience,  seizes  her  attention,  and  diverts  her  thoughts 
into  some  new  channel.  With  a  single  exception,  she 
exhibits  no  delusions ;  but  that  which  she  does  enter- 
tain seems  scarcely  necessary  to  confirm  our  convic- 
tions of  her  insanity.  And  yet  the  mental  disorder  so 
obvious,  even  without  the  addition  of  delusion,  we  should 
find  it  not  easy,  in  an  actual  case,  to  establish  or  prove 
satisfactorily  by  the  most  careful  description.  Were  we 
asked  on  the  witness-stand,  in  a  court  of  justice,  our 
reason  for  believing  Madge  Wildfire  insane,  we  should 
have  to  rely  solely  on  her  fancy  that  she  was  once  dead, 
and  danced  on  the  green  sward  by  moonlight  with  other 
dead  folks.  Proof  drawn  from  the  general  style  of  her 
conduct  and  conversation  would  fall  on  unwilling  ears 
as  something  too  fanciful  or  theoretical  to  deserve 
serious  consideration.  It  certainly  would  have  gone 
hard  with  Madge,  had  she  been  on  trial  for  some  capital 
crime,  and  this  delusion  of  hers  been  overlooked ;  for  it 
could  have  been  easily  shown,  that  she  could  distinguish 
between  right  and  wrong ;  that  she  knew  the  wicked 
would  be  punished  hereafter  for  their  deeds  ;  that  she 
could  lav  plans,  and  select  proper  means  for  accomplish- 
ing her  ends,  —  all  which  would  have  been  considered 
as  clearly  incompatible  with  the  kind  of  insanity  which 
annuls  criminal  responsibility.  True,  a  whole  century 
and  more  has  elapsed  since  that  time,  and  left  us  the 


536  ILLUSTRATIONS    OF   INSANITY 

benefit  of  its  light ;  but  I  am  not  quite  sure  that  her 
case  would  be  more  favorably  regarded,  even  in  our 
own  times. 

The  distinction  between  the  form  of  disease  repre- 
sented in  this  character  and  other  forms  is  admirably 
preserved.  Its  drifting  thoughts  are  never  exchanged 
for  the  sudden  and  violent  transitions  of  acute  mania, 
nor  the  solemn  and  persistent  absurdities  of  pure  mono- 
mania. For  a  moment  or  two,  she  pursues  a  train  of 
thought  with  tolerable  correctness,  and  then  her  mind 
is  diverted  from  the  track  by  some  incongruous  image 
or  fantastic  association.  The  fault  is  not  so  much  in 
the  thoughts  themselves,  independently  considered,  as 
in  their  vicious  succession,  the  bond  of  union  being 
broken  at  frequent  intervals.  In  Madge,  these  unnatu- 
ral transitions  are  made  more  abrupt  than  they  would 
otherwise  have  been,  by  a  considerable  degree  of  ex- 
citement which  imparts  to  the  mental  movements  a 
constant  hurry,  if  not  confusion,  not  easily  described. 
Her  memory  is  strong,  her  conceptions  are  vivid,  her 
sense  of  the  true  and  the  beautiful  is  still  keen,  and 
many  of  her  relations  to  others  are  correctly  discerned. 
But  her  mind  is  intensely  introspective,  absorbed  in  an 
outspoken  reverie  from  which  it  is  drawn  only  by  sug- 
gestions from  without.  Her  emotional  nature  also  shares 
in  the  disorder  that  pervades  her  intellectual  operations; 
for  the  least  opposition  or  a  fancied  slight  raises  a  gust 
of  passion  that  spares  neither  friend  nor  foe.  This 
trait  is  admirably  displayed  by  Madge,  who,  while 
quietly  making  her  way  to  church,  suddenly  turns  and 
spies  Jeanie  about  to  sit  down  on  her  father's  grave. 
"  She  followed  her  with  long  strides,  and,  with  every 
feature  inflamed  with  passion,  overtook  and  seized  her 
by  the.  arm.     '  Do  ye  think,  ye  ungrateful  wretch,  that 


BY    SIR   WALTER    SCOTT.  537 

I  am  gaun  to  let  you  sit  down  upon  my  father's  grave  ? 
The  deil  settle  ye  down,  if  ye  dinna  rise  and  come  into 
the  Interpreter's  house,  that's  the  house  of  God,  wTi'  me, 
but  I'll  rive  every  dud  aff  your  back ! '  She  adapted 
the  action  to  the  phrase  ;  for  with  one  clutch  she  stripped 
Jeanie  of  her  straw  bonnet  and  a  handful  of  her  hair 
to  boot,  and  threw  it  up  into  an  old  yew  tree." 

That  Sir  Walter  well  understood  the  form  of  disease 
he  had  to  deal  with,  is  made  very  evident  by  many  of 
those  exquisite  touches  which,  like  that  just  mentioned, 
would  seem  to  have  been  beyond  the  reach  of  any  but 
the  strictly  professional  observer. 

What  can  be  better  than  Madge's  reply  to  Jeanie  Deans 
when  she  said  she  was  never  in  Bedlam.  "  Weel,  I  think 
thae  daft  carles  the  magistrates  send  naebody  to  Bedlam 
but  me,  —  they  maun  hae  an  unco  respect  for  me,  for 
whenever  I  am  brought  to  them,  they  aye  hae  me  back 
to  Bedlam.  But  troth,  Jeanie,  (she  said  this  in  a  very 
confidential  tone,)  to  tell  ye  my  private  mind  about  it,  I 
think  ye  are  at  nae  great  loss  ;  for  the  keeper's  a  cross 
patch,  and  he  maun  hae  it  a'  his  ain  gate,  to  be  sure,  or 
he  makes  the  place  waur  than  hell.  I  often  tell  him  he's 
the  daftest  in  a'  the  house." 

Something  suggests  a  comparison  between  her  own 
condition  and  circumstances  and  those  of  Bunyan's  Pil- 
grims;  and  the  fondness  with  which  she  recurs  to  this 
idea,  and  her  ingenuity  in  managing  the  comparison,  con- 
stitute a  very  life-like  trait  in  this  portrait  of  insanity. 
Her  exhibition  in  the  parish  church  illustrates  the  ways 
and  manners  of  the  class  of  insane  to  which  she  belonged, 
better  than  a  volume  of  description.  We  cannot  forbear 
to  extract  a  passage  from  this  exquisite  scene. 

"  She  swam  rather  than  walked  up  the  centre  aisle, 
dragging  Jeanie  after  her,  whom  she  held  fast  by  the 


538  ILLUSTRATIONS    OF   INSANITY 

hand.  She  would,  indeed,  have  fain  slipped  aside  into 
the  pew  nearest  the  door,  and  left  Madge  to  ascend  in 
her  own  manner,  and  alone,  to  the  high  places  of  the 
synagogue  ;  but  this  was  impossible  without  a  degree  of 
violent  resistance,  which  seemed  to  her  inconsistent  with 
the  time  and  place,  and  she  was  accordingly  led  in  cap- 
tivity up  the  whole  length  of  the  church,  by  her  gro- 
tesque conductress,  who,  with  half  shut  eyes,  a  prim 
smile  upon  her  lips,  and  a  mincing  motion  with  her  hands, 
which  corresponded  with  the  delicate  and  affected 
pace  at  which  she  was  pleased  to  move,  seemed  to  take 
the  general  stare  of  the  congregation,  which  such  an 
exhibition  necessarily  excited,  as  a  high  compliment,  and 
which  she  returned  by  nods  and  half  courtesies  to  individ- 
uals amongst  the  audience,  whom  she  seemed  to  distin- 
guish as  acquaintances.  Her  absurdity  was  enhanced 
in  the  eyes  of  the  spectators,  by  the  strange  contrast 
which  she  formed  to  her  companion,  who,  with  dishev- 
elled hair,  downcast  eyes,  and  a  face  glowing  with 
shame,  was  dragged,  as  it  were,  in  triumph  after  her. 

"  Madge's  airs  were  at  length  fortunately  cut  short 
by  her  encountering  in  her  progress  the  looks  of  the 
clergyman,  who  fixed  upon  her  a  glance  at  once  steady, 
compassionate,  and  admonitory.  She  hastily  opened  an 
empty  pew  which  happened  to  be  near  her,  and  entered, 
dragging  in  Jeanie  after  her.  Kicking  Jeanie  on  the 
shins,  by  way  of  hint  that  she  should  follow  her  exam- 
ple, she  sunk  her  head  upon  her  hand  for  the  space  of  a 
minute.  Jeanie,  to  whom  this  posture  of  mental  devo- 
tion was  entirely  new,  did  not  attempt  to  do  the  like,  but 
looked  around  her  with  a  bewildered  stare,  which  her 
neighbors,  judging  from  the  company  in  which  they  saw 
her,  very  naturally  ascribed  to  insanity.  Every  person 
in  their  immediate  vicinity  drew  back  from  this  extra- 


BY   SIR,   WALTER    SCOTT.  539 

ordinary  couple  as  far  as  the  limits  of  their  pew  per- 
mitted, but  one  old  man  could  not  get  beyond  Madge's 
reach,  ere  she  had  snatched  the  prayer-book  from  his 
hand,  and  ascertained  the  lesson  of  the  day.  She  then 
turned  up  the  ritual,  and,  with  the  most  overstrained 
enthusiasm  of  gesture  and  manner,  showed  Jeanie  the 
passages  as  they  were  read  in  the  service,  making  at  the 
same  time  her  own  responses  so  loud  as  to  be  heard 
above  those  of  every  other  person." 

In  the  last  scene  of  all,  in  the  agony  of  spirit  pro- 
duced by  the  execution  of  her  mother,  she  recurs  to  this 
passage  between  herself  and  Jeanie,  and  with  a  pathos 
heightened  by  her  distracted  emotions  she  exclaims, 
"Oh,  Jeanie  Deans,  —  Jeanie  Deans!  save  my  mother, 
and  I  will  take  ye  to  the  Interpreter's  house  again,  and  I 
will  teach  ye  a'  my  bonny  sangs,  —  and  I  will  tell  ye 
what  came  o'  the  —  " 

Few  of  Scott's  young  ladies  inspire  a  deeper  interest 
than  Clara  Mowbray  in  "  St.  Ronan's  Well,"  and  for  no 
other  reason,  that  I  can  see,  but  that  the  blight  of  insan- 
ity has  fallen  upon  her  joyous  spirit,  and  insulated  it  in 
the  very  midst  of  the  allurements  and  promises  of  life. 
She  does  not,  however,  so  much  illustrate  any  particular 
form  of  insanity,  as  that  peculiar  condition  of  the  mind 
which  is  generally  the  precursor,  and  sometimes  the  fol- 
lower, of  a  decided  attack  of  the  disease.  To  its  former 
relation  with  insanity,  1  have  already  adverted,  p.  443, 
and  the  latter  is  also  full  of  interest  to  the  poet  and  the 
psychologist.  It  may  be  well  to  premise,  however,  that 
I  do  not  suppose  that,  in  the  mental  impairment  of  Clara 
Mowbray,  Scott  expressly  designed  to  represent  that 
particular  condition  that  precedes  or  follows  an  attack 
of  insanity.  It  was  enough  for  him  to  represent  what 
had  come  within  the  range  of  his  observation.     Its  exact 


540  ILLUSTKATIONS   OF  INSANITY 

relation  to  decided,  unquestionable  insanity,  he  prob- 
ably regarded  as  a  subject  belonging  to  the  scientific 
inquirer. 

It  is  a  well  confirmed  fact  that  in  a  certain  proportion 
of  those  who  recover  from  an  attack  of  insanity,  the 
mind  never  exactly  regains  its  normal  condition.  Al- 
though the  person's  thoughts  may  be  apparently,  and 
perhaps  really,  correct,  and  his  duties  performed  with 
the  utmost  propriety,  yet  there  is  an  oddity  in  his  ways, 
a  singularity  in  his  dress  and  demeanor,  a  brusqueness 
of  manner,  and  a  general  want  of  harmony  between  the 
manifestations  of  his  character  and  conduct,  that  attract 
the  attention  of  the  bystander  and  give  rise  to  special 
remark.  The  morbid  influence  is  witnessed  only  occa- 
sionally, and  is  confined  to  points  of  secondary  conse- 
quence, —  the  "  minor  morals  "  and  the  minor  manners 
of  the  individual.  The  shadows  of  disease  flit  across 
his  mental  horizon,  like  clouds  in  a  summer  sky,  before 
the  face  of  the  sun,  merely  subduing,  while  they  pass, 
the  brightness  of  its  light.  We  are  no  sooner  aware  of 
their  presence  than  they  have  vanished,  and  the  glorious 
luminary  shines  out  again  in  its  undimmed  splendor.  Such 
persons  are  more  or  less  aware  of  their  infirmity,  and 
are  able,  to  a  certain  extent,  especially  in  the  presence 
of  others,  to  exercise  their  self-control,  and  restrain 
the  manifestations  of  disease.  It  is  when  alone  and  un- 
observed, when  forming  or  executing  their  plans,  or 
even  when  quietly  following  their  ordinary  routine  of 
duty,  that  they  betray,  unconsciously  to  themselves,  the 
infirmity  by  which  they  are  mastered.  To  those  who 
have  frequent  intercourse  with  them,  their  mental  im- 
pairment is  perfectly  obvious;  but  they  would  find  it 
difficult,  merely  by  a  description  of  their  conduct  and 
conversation,  to  convince  others  of  the  fact  who  have 


BY   SIR   WALTER   SCOTT.  541 

not  had  the  same  means  of  acquaintance.     It  is  one  of 
those  things  that  cannot  be  described,  —  it  must  be  seen    . 
in  order  to  be  adequately  conceived  and  understood. 

This  condition  of  mind  is  admirably  represented  in 
Clara  Mowbray.     From  others  we  learn  that  she  has  "  a 
bee  in  her  bonnet,"  and  we  find  indeed  that  her  insanity 
is  a  matter  of  common  remark,  but  we  hear  nothing  of 
it  from  her  own  lips.   To  the  casual  observer  she  appears 
merely  to  be  a  free-spoken  young  lady,  rather  regardless 
of  those  conventional  forms  by  which  the  intercourse  of 
society  is  maintained,  but  whose  discourse  sparkles  with 
wit,  and  lacks  neither  vigor  nor  point.     At  the  most  he 
observes  only  an  unfeminine  independence,  or  a  dash  of 
eccentricity  quite  compatible  with  the  soundest  condition 
of  mind.     If  then  she  says  nothing  "  sounding  to  folly," 
and  behaves,  in  our  presence  at  least,  like  many  young- 
ladies  whose  manners  have  been  somewhat  neglected, 
we  may  be  asked  where  we  find  the  evidence  that  she  is 
otherwise  than  perfectly  sane.     We  find  it  in  her  dis- 
taste of  society  and  impatience  of  its  forms,  and  espe- 
cially in  those  occasional  freaks  which  are  at  variance 
with   every  principle   of  prudence  and  common  sense. 
We  find  it  in  her  appearance  before  a  brilliant  company 
in  her  riding-dress ;  in  thoughtlessly  giving  away  the 
costly  present  of  her  brother  ;  in  the  variety  of  feminine 
labors  begun  but  never  finished,  that  lie  scattered  about 
her  boudoir.     Some  of  the  traits  which  she  exhibits  also 
are  not  natural  to  her  character,  but  proceed  from  a 
physical  condition  that    is   intimately    connected  with 
insanity.      The  inward   grief  that  consumes  her  heart 
produces  a  kind  of  nervous  erethism,  which  occasionally 
breaks  out  into  extravagant  spirits  and  an   unnatural 
buoyancy  of  the  feelings,  which,  though  sometimes  as- 
sumed for  one  purpose  or  another,  are  the  involuntary 


542         ILLUSTBATIONS  OF  INSANITY 

reaction  of  the  prevalent  and  habitual  condition.  In 
such  a  state  of  mind  it  scarcely  needed  so  severe  a  blow- 
as  the  disclosure  of  her  brother's  designs  to  dissolve 
the  feeble  bond  that  holds  her  shattered  intellect  to- 
gether. 

Noma  of  the  Fitful  Head,  in  the  "  Pirate/'  "  is  meant/' 
says  the  author,  "  to  be  an  instance  of  that  singular  kind 
of  insanity,  during  which  the  patient,  while  he  or  she 
retains  much  subtlety  and  address  for  the  power  of  im- 
posing upon  others,  is  still  more  ingenious  in  endeavor- 
ing to  impose  upon  themselves."  It  is  a  less  common 
form  of  the  disease  than  general  mania,  but  its  patho- 
logical characters  are  equally  constant  and  well  defined. 
Although  apparently  a  simpler  disorder  than  the  latter, 
because  fewer  of  the  mental  powers  are  involved  in  the 
morbid  action,  yet  I  am  not  sure  that  it  has  been  more 
successfully  represented  by  literary  writers.  The  phe- 
nomena that  first  meet  the  attention  are  so  strange  and 
extraordinary,  that  others  less  striking  are  apt  to  be 
overlooked  altogether.  The  mind  is  so  steady  to  its 
favorite  fancies,  and  so  consistent  and  coherent  in 
maintaining  them,  that  less  opportunity  is  afforded  for 
the  display  of  the  writer's  skill  than  in  those  forms  of 
derangement  where  the  bonds  of  association  are  more 
delicate  and  obscure,  and  the  thoughts  have  a  more  mot- 
ley and  impulsive  character.  The  task  of  the  simulator, 
however,  who  chooses  it  for  the  purpose  of  deception,  is 
far  from  being  lighter.  He  may  easily  profess  the  ex- 
traordinary notions  of  the  monomaniac,  and  even  avoid, 
with  some  ingenuity,  the  absurdities  to  which  they  lead, 
but  there  are  numberless  other  traits  which  all  his  skill 
would  utterly  fail  to  represent.  What  sane  mind  can 
fully  imitate  the  monomaniac's  style  of  reasoning  which, 
while  it  has  some  show  of  logic,  would  never  have  been 


BY   SIR   WALTER    SCOTT.  543 

offered,  even  in  jest,  by  a  rational  understanding?  What 
power  of  mimicry  can  represent  his  transparent  sincer- 
ity, his  unfaltering  confidence,  the  prevailing  tendency 
of  his  unsuggested  and  spontaneous  reflections  to  the 
morbid  point,  his  abstracted  air,  his  constrained  and  fit- 
ful movements?  The  most  accomplished  actor,  after 
years  of  observation,  would  fail,  I  think,  to  imitate  these 
traits  well  enough  to  deceive  the  practised  observer  of 
the  insane.  The  writer  has  an  easier  task,  and  conse- 
quently has  been  more  successful.  He  deals  only  with 
mental  manifestations.  The  air,  the  manner,  the-gesture, 
the  look,  the  act,  though  equally  bearing  the  impress  of 
insanity,  do  not  come  within  his  province.  Considered 
in  this  light,  Noma  must  ever  be  regarded  as  a  most  im- 
pressive and  life-like  delineation  of  monomania.  The 
lofty  bearing,  the  magnificent  pretensions,  the  grandilo- 
quent announcement  of  her  supernatural  powers,  and  the 
constant  yet  unconscious  endeavor  to  deceive  others,  as 
she  had  already  deceived  herself,  are  represented  with 
unimprovable  fidelity.  Noma's  insanity,  however,  is  evi- 
dently but  a  secondary  feature  in  her  character,  and 
subordinate  to  the  higher  part  she  plays  in  the  course  of 
events  in  which  she  is  destined  to  mingle.  The  idea  is, 
not  so  much  to  represent  this  part  as  the  result  of  insan- 
ity, as  to  make  the  latter  a  sufficient  reason  for  what 
would  have  been  inexplicable  and  impossible  without  it. 
The  force  and  pertinency  of  her  discourse  are  not  indeed 
incompatible  with  very  serious  lesion  of  the  understand- 
ing, but  other  traits  and  qualities  are  attributed  to  her 
character,  only  at  the  expense  of  its  pathological  cor- 
rectness. She  keeps  a  vigilant  eye  on  what  is  passing 
around  her,  displays  a  mother's  affection  for  her  son,  and 
a  very  natural  interest  in  the  honor  and  happiness  of 
her  kindred.     This  was  necessary  to  the  development 


544  ILLUSTRATIONS    OF    INSANITY 

of  the  plot,  but  not  very  strictly  in  accordance  with  the 
nature  of  the  disease.  The  monomaniac  retains  but  little 
interest  in  anything  but  his  own  delusions,  and  family 
and  friends  are  generally  regarded  with  indifference,  if 
not  positive  dislike.  I  will  not  say  that  no  exception  can 
be  found  to  this  rule,  but  Scott  would  scarcely  be  helped 
by  the  admission  that  the  type  of  one  of  his  prominent 
characters  is  to  be  found  in  an  extreme  case,  a  solitary 
instance,  rather  than  a  large  class  of  mankind.  It  is 
understood  to  be  the  peculiar  merit  of  Scott  as  well  as 
Shakespeare,  that  the  men  and  women  in  whom  he  en- 
lists our  interests  are  no  questionable  existences,  whose 
mortal  affinities  are  hard  to  be  discerned,  but  bear  upon 
their  front  the  unmistakable  features  of  humanity.  And, 
with  the  single  exception  before  us,  neither  has  deviated 
from  the  general  principle  upon  which  he  labored  in  his 
conceptions  of  character. 

By  no  English  writer  have  the  delusions  of  pure  mono- 
mania been  more  truthfully  represented  than  by  Dr.  John- 
son in  "  Rasselas,"  —  an  achievement  we  should  hardly 
have  expected  from  one  whose  own  mental  movements 
were  of  the  most  regular  and  measured  character.  An 
old  astronomer  had  been  so  long  and  deeply  engrossed 
in  the  observation  of  the  heavens,  that  he  finally  imbibed 
the  idea  that  he  could  control  their  motions  and  regulate 
the  distribution  of  their  blessings.  In  homely  phrase, 
he  imagined  that  he  was  "  clerk  of  the  weather."  Who 
that  has  mingled  much  with  the  insane  has  not  witnessed 
the  counterpart  of  the  childlike  naivete  and  unquestion- 
ing self-confidence  with  which  he  relates  his  wonderful 
powers,  and  which  is  admirably  set  off  by  the  grandilo- 
quent language  of  Johnson  ? 

"  I  have  possessed  for  five  years  the  regulation  of  the 
weather,  and  the  distribution  of  the  seasons  :  the  sun  has 


BY   DR.    JOHNSON.  545 

listened  to  my  dictates,  and  passed  from  tropic  to  tropic 
by  my  direction ;  the  clouds  at  my  call  have  poured  their 
waters,  and  the  Nile  has  overflowed  at  my  command ;  I 
have  restrained  the  rage  of  the  dog-star,  and  mitigated 
the  fervors  of  the  crab.  The  winds  alone,  of  all  the 
elemental  powers,  have  hitherto  refused  my  authority, 
and  multitudes  have  perished  by  equinoctial  tempests 
which  I  found  myself  unable  to  prohibit  or  restrain. 
I  have  administered  this  great  office  with  exact  justice, 
and  made  to  the  different  nations  of  the  earth  an  impar- 
tial dividend  of  rain  and  sunshine.  What  must  have 
been  the  misery  of  half  the  globe  if  I  had  limited  the 
clouds  to  particular  regions  or  confined  the  sun  to 
either  side  of  the  equator?" 

His  account  of  the  manner  in  which  he  obtained  and 
became  conscious  of  his  powers  presents  an  excellent 
illustration  of  the  characteristic  mistake  which  the  insane 
very  often  commit  on  this  point.  "  About  ten  years  ago, 
my  daily  observations  of  the  changes  of  the  sky  led  me 
to  consider,  whether,  if  I  had  the  power  of  the  seasons, 
I  could  confer  greater  plenty  upon  the  inhabitants  of  the 
earth.  This  contemplation  fastened  on  my  mind,  and  I 
sat  days  and  nights  in  imaginary  dominion,  pouring  upon 
this  country  and  that  the  showers  of  fertility,  and  second- 
ing every  fall  of  rain  with  a  due  proportion  of  sunshine. 
I  had  yet  only  the  will  to  do  good,  and  did  not  imagine 
that  I  should  ever  have  the  power.  One  day  as  I  was 
looking  on  the  fields  withering  with  heat,  I  felt  in  my 
mind  a  sudden  wish  that  I  could  send  rain  on  the  south- 
ern mountains  and  raise  the  Nile  to  an  inundation.  In 
the  hurry  of  my  imagination  I  commanded  rain  to  fall; 
and,  by  comparing  the  time  of  my  command  with  that  of 
the  inundation,  I  found  that  the  clouds  had  listened  to 
my  lips." 

35 


546  ILLUSTRATIONS    OF   INSANITY 

The  immediate  execution  of  his  command  he  repre- 
sents to  be  the  sole  ground  of  his  faith,  and  is  quite 
unconscious  that  the  thought  in  question  was  but  a  re- 
sult of  the  morbid  action  that  had  long  been  established 
in  his  mind.     Judging  merely  from  his  own  account  one 
might  be  led  to  suppose  that  his  mind  was  as  firm  and 
steady  as  ever,  and  that  the  fact  of  the  necessary  connec- 
tion of  the  two  events  was  forced  upon  him  by  irresistible 
evidence.     His  friends  would  probably  have  told  us  a 
different  story,  and   made   us  acquainted  with  strange 
deviations  from  his  natural  demeanor  or  style  of  think- 
ing, long  before  his  delusion  had  taken  a  definite  shape. 
An  insane    person  can   seldom  trace  very  clearly  the 
initiatory    steps  by  which   he    has   been  brought  into 
trouble,  or  led  to  some  extraordinary  conclusion;  and 
the  ability   is   not  always   gained    after   the    recovery. 
In  seeking  for  the  causes  of  the  remarkable  change  that 
has  come  over  him,  he  is  apt  to  fix  upon  some  person 
or  incident  which  had  but  a  trivial  or  accidental  connec- 
tion with  it,  or  appeared  at  a  subsequent  elate.     As  in 
the  present  case,  the  execution  of  the  command  is  re- 
garded as  the  first  noticeable  fact  in  the  history  of  his 
case,  while  the  idea  of  uttering  such  a  strange  command 
scarcely  arrests  his  attention.     It  may  be  well  to  add 
that  this  coincidence  between  the  thought  -and  subse- 
quent   event   frequently  appears  in  the   narratives  of 
persons  relating  to  the  origin  of  their  disorder,  and  prob- 
ably arises  from  that  misplacement  in  the  succession  of 
their  ideas,  which  is  not  an  uncommon  phenomenon  of 
insanity. 

The  accuracy  of  Johnson's  picture  of  monomania  is 
farther  displayed  by  the  astronomer's  account  of  the 
mental  conflicts  he  endured,  and  of  the  final  triumph  of 
his  delusion.     When  asked  if  some  other  cause  might 


BY   RICHARDSON.  547 

not  have  produced  the  concurrence,  he  replied  that  such 
objections  did  not  escape  him.  "  I  reasoned  long  against 
my  own  conviction,  and  labored  against  truth  with  the 
utmost  obstinacy.  I  sometimes  suspected  myself  of 
madness,  and  should  not  have  dared  to  impart  this  secret 
but  to  a  man  like  you,  capable  of  distinguishing  the 
wonderful  from  the  impossible,  and  the  incredible  from 
the  false.''  A  more  faithful  and  graphic  description  than 
this,  of  what  is  called  the  incubation  of  insanity,  could 
not  be*  had.  The  strange  fancies  that  ever  and  anon 
intrude  themselves  into  the  mind,  the  gradually  weak- 
ened struggle  by  which  they  are  resisted,  the  suspicion 
of  one's  own  madness,  the  ultimate  conviction  of  the 
reality  of  the  marvellous  belief,  the  unfaltering  self-com- 
placency with  which  the  patient  proclaims  his  own  men- 
tal integrity  and  vigor,  —  how  common,  how  life-like,  are 
these  traits !  In  the  latter  part  of  the  passage,  how- 
ever, the  old  astronomer  is  altogether  too  cool,  too  sen- 
sible, too  considerate  on  the  subject  of  his  belief.  True, 
the  convictions  of  the  monomaniac  are  always  too  strong 
to  be  shaken  by  any  possible  force  of  evidence  or  reason  : 
but  he  never  troubles  himself  about  the  impression  they 
make  upon  others,  because  they  seem  to  him  self-evi- 
dent, as  it  were,  beyond  question  or  cavil.  I  do  not 
deny  the  possibility  of  his  thinking  that  others  ought  to 
differ  from  him,  according  to  "the  laws  of  demonstra- 
tion," but  I  have  never  met  with  an  instance  of  the 
kind. 

Richardson,  in  "  Sir  Charles  G-randison,"  has  tried  his 
hand  upon  a  case  of  acute  mania  characterized  by 
depression.  The  lady  Clementina,  whom  he  has  endowed 
with  every  possible  feminine  virtue,  rather  suddenly 
falls  into  fits  of  absence  and  revery,  in  which  the  subject 
of  her  thoughts  seems  to  assume  an  objective  existence. 


548         ILLUSTRATIONS  OF  INSANITY 

With  unnatural  precipitation  the  mental  malady  increases 
in  severity,  —  the  depression  frequently  alternating  with 
a  state  of  restlessness  and  excitement,  though  never 
rising  to  the  pitch  of  fury  or  raving.  The  cause  of  the 
trouble,  as  we  subsequently  ascertain,  is  an  affair  of  the 
heart,  though,  after  making  every  allowance,  this  seems 
to  be  rather  a  forced  conclusion.  Before  the  course  of 
her  affections  had  been  thwarted,  before  a  single  ob- 
jection could  have  been  reasonably  anticipated,  before, 
probably,  such  a  woman  could  be  supposed  to  be  con- 
scious of  the  existence  of  the  tender  passion,  she  ingen- 
iously reasons  herself  into  the  belief  of  insuperable 
difficulties,  and  the  peace  and  joy  of  her  pure  and  inno- 
cent soul  give  place  to  sorrow  and  bewildering  reveries. 
To  such  a  soul,  no  sentiment  can  be  more  congenial, 
and  consequently  none  more  healthy,  than  love.  To 
represent  it,  therefore,  under  such  circumstances,  as 
nearly  allied  to  madness,  betrays  an  inability  to  appre- 
ciate one  of  the  most  beautiful  harmonies  between  our 
moral  and  physical  nature,  or  at  least  the  willingness  to 
sacrifice  it  to  the  paramount  object  of  drawing  forth  the 
tears  of  sentimental  young  ladies  and  gentlemen..  In- 
deed, Richardson's  task  was  hardly  within  his  vein.  The 
lighter  movements  of  the  heart,  especially  as  they  are 
revealed  through  the  conventional  guises  of  society, 
have  never  been  more  faithfully  portrayed  than  by  him ; 
but  the  deep  currents  of  passion,  the  central  springs  of 
character  in  which  are  the  issues  of  moral  life,  seem  to 
have  been  entirely  beyond  his  reach. 

As  a  picture  of  mental  disorder  considered  without 
reference  to  its  origin,  the  merit  of  Clementina  is  some- 
what various.  Occasionally,  the  hand  of  the  master  is 
plainly  visible,  especially  in  representing  the  drifting 
character  of  the   thoughts,  and   in  managing  the   tran- 


BY   RICHARDSON.  549 

sitions  from  depression  to  excitement.    In  these  respects, 
I  am  inclined  to  regard  some  scenes  as  perfect.     How 
genuine  and  life-like  are  her  whole  appearance  and  man- 
ner when  found  by  her  maid  about  to  visit  the  Chevalier, 
in  order,  as  she  said,  to  deliver  him  a  message  from  God! 
They  impress  us  like  some  of  those  marvellous  pictures 
whose  figures  seem  to  stand  out  from  the  canvas,   and 
imbibe  the  Promethean  fire,  while  we  gaze  upon  their 
expanding   features.      Richardson    seems,    however,  to 
have  exhausted  his  resources  before  he  had  finished  his 
task,  which,  considering  the  interminable  length  to  which 
everything  he    handles   is    spun  out,  is  not  surprising. 
Through  some  whole  scenes  her  discourse  is  unexcep- 
tionably  sensible  and  appropriate,  and    we    lose    sight 
altogether   of  her   insanity.     Of  course,  in  the  conver- 
sation of  the  insane,  we  expect  to  find  "  matter  and  im- 
pertinency  mixed  ; ?'  but  in  the  present  case  the  mixture 
is  often  almost  entirely  composed  of  the  former  element. 
In  shunning  the  common  error  of  representing  the  dis- 
course of  the  insane  as  a  jargon  of  words  unconnected 
by  a  single  tie  of  congruity  or  coherence,  he  has  com- 
mitted the  opposite  one  of  freeing  it  from  every  trace  of 
insanity,  and  rilling  it  with  pertinent  and  judicious  re- 
flections.    To   avoid  these  two  extremes  of  error   has 
always  been  found,  I  imagine,  the  most  difficult  part  of 
the  task  of  writers  who  undertake  to  delineate  insanity. 
We  have  previously  remarked  that  in  a  large  proportion 
of  cases  the  mental  disorder  is  indicated  in  the  patient's 
discourse,  not  so  much  by  wild  and  extravagant  expres- 
sions as  by  the   peculiar  and  not  easily  described  suc- 
cession and  grouping  of  the  ideas.     Richardson  seems 
not  to  have  been  aware  of  this  fact.     The  lady  talks  alto- 
gether too  much  and  too  sensibly  of  her  lover,  for  one 
in  her  distracted  condition.     If  there  is  any  subject  in 


550  ILLUSTRATIONS    OF   INSANITY 

the  world  on  which  the  insane  manifest  their  insanity, 
provided  they  talk  about  it  at  all,  which  they  very  sel- 
dom do,  it  is  usually  that  which  is  intimately  connected 
with  the  origin  of  their  disorder.  However  sober  and 
correct  their  conversation  may  be  on  indifferent  matters, 
on  that  they  are  sure  to  wander. 

The  prominent  fault,  however,  of  this  attempt  of  Rich- 
ardson to  delineate  insanity,  is  that  the  disease  contrib- 
utes no  additional  interest  to  the  character.  It  brings 
out  no  new  trait,  and  magnifies  none  with  which  we 
were  previously  acquainted.  The  patience,  resignation, 
and  sweetness  of  temper  which  it  leads  her  to  exhibit, 
are  not  the  exclusive  offspring  of  insanity,  and  might  as 
well  have  been  exemplified  in  any  other  disease.  We 
are  grieved  for  her  distressed  family,  and  especially  for 
the  gentle  sufferer  herself;  but  we  are  not  sure  that  our 
feelings  are  anywise  different  from  what  they  would  be 
were  she  laboring  under  an  attack  of  pneumonia  or  gas- 
tritis. We  see  only  affliction,  disappointment,  and  sor- 
row, and  we  feel  accordingly.  We  are  made  acquainted 
with  no  new  phases  of  character,  and  our  deepest  inter- 
est and  warmest  sympathies  are  not  enlisted  by  the 
sight  of  moral  or  intellectual  treasures  which  only  the 
storms  of  mental  disease  can  upheave  from  the  depths 
of  their  concealment.  In  short,  she  is  the  same  Signora 
Clementina  that  we  knew  when  sane,  and  in  the  enjoy- 
ment of  every  blessing  ;  and  we  cannot  disguise  the  fact 
that  we  are  heartily  rejoiced  when  she  fairly  gets 
through  the  disorder  with  which  the  author,  in  his  wis- 
dom, has  seen  fit  to  visit  her. 

Richardson  has  one  merit,  however,  in  his  delineation 
of  insanity,  that  ought  to  atone  for  a  multitude  of  defects. 
At  a  time  when  the  insane  were  treated  with  harshness 
and  even  barbarity,  for  the  purpose  of  subduing  their 


BY   BICHARDSOX.  551 

wills,  he  set  himself  decidedly  against  the  popular  prac- 
tice, and  contended  for  the  opposite  kind  of  treatment. 
He   fairly   exhibited   the    results   of  the    two    different 
methods  :   and  in   a  manner  more  convincing  than  the 
most  formidable  array  of  statistics  could  have  made  it 
demonstrated  the  superiority  of  that  mild  and  indulgent 
management  which  is  now  firmly  established  among  all 
civilized  nations.     Indeed,  with  some  propriety,  he  may 
be  regarded  as  the  pioneer  of  that  blessed  reform  which, 
shortly  after,  was  quietly  introduced   and   almost  per- 
fected by  the  Quakers  at  the  York  Retreat.     Merit  of 
this  kind  is  seldom  duly  appreciated  by  the  world,  for  it 
does  not  strike  the  imagination  like  that  of  brilliant  dis- 
coveries in  the  physical  sciences  ;  and  the  very  reason 
that  reforms  like  that  in  question  are  so  obviously  sanc- 
tioned and  confirmed  by  common  sense  and  the  feelings 
of  common  humanity  is   apt  to  detract  from  the  merit  of 
those  who  conceive  them. 


INDEX. 


Addington,  recommends  a  hop  pillow 

for  the  King,  459 ;  supposed  to  have 

recommended  "Willis,  440. 
Allison.    Judge,    decision    respecting 

confinement  of  the  insane,  174. 
Aphasia,    lntelv    much    investigated, 

315. 
Approximation  to  truth,  what  it  means, 

95. 

Beliefs  false,  how  distinguished  from 
delusions,  152. 

Bentham,  his  disposal  of  his  body, 
155. 

Books,  not  allowed  to  be  read  in  trials, 
226. 

Brewster,  Judge,  h:s  decision  respect- 
ing confinement.  173,  181,  184. 

Bucknill,  writes  about  Shakespeare's 
mad  folk.  483. 

Bulletins,  461. 

Burke,  complained  th  u  the  King  was 
not  safe  in  Willis's  hand*.  452: 
had  visited  hospitals  for  the  insane 
and  read  many  book-  on  insanity, 
455. 

Bumey,  Mis=,  describes  the  first  attack, 
437 :  describes  her  meeting  with  the 
King,  438;  repeats  his  story  of  hav- 
ing been  abused.  441. 

Burnside,  Judge,  his  decision  respect- 
ing confinement.  176. 


Capacity,  testamentary,  compared  with 
capacity  for  making  contracts.  343. 
387. 

Causes  of  insanity,  imperfectly  under- 
stood, 25;  often  confounded  with  the 
incident*,  2D:  uot  necessarily  the 
most  prominent  event.  31;  often 
confounded  with  its  effects,  36,  90: 
cannot  be  ascertained  without  a 
thorough  knowledge  of  patient's 
antecedents,  34;  most  efficient  is 
inherent  cerebral  defect,  38;  obvi- 
ated by  infusion  of  better  blood. 
41 ;  their  vagueness  of  meaning, 
88. 

Census  of  1840,  misrepresents  the 
amount  of  insanity  among  colored 
free  people,  69. 

Clara  Mowbray,  character  of  her  insan- 
ity, 539. 

Classification  of  mental  diseases,  94. 

Clementina,  character  of  her  insanity. 
547. 

Colby  v.  Jackson,  170. 

Coleridge,  Justice,  his  decision  respect- 
ing confinement,  173. 

Combe,  his  definition  of  insanity.  108. 

Confinement  of  the  insane,  a  natural 
duty  of  friends,  169;  authorized  by 
constitution  of  PennsUva*  ia.  176; 
laws  respecting  it  still  conflicting, 
188:    commissions  of  lunacv  to  be 


554 


INDEX. 


avoided  as  long  as  possible,  191; 

seldom  if  ever,  abused,  198. 
Conolly,  his  essay  on  Hamlet,  483. 
Conspiracy,    action    of,    a    source    of 

flagitious  suits,  294. 
Contracts  with  God,  cases  of,  156, 164; 

implied  in  the  ancient  covenants  of 

God  with  man,  166. 
Crime,  elements  of,  205. 
Cross-examination  often  frustrates  the 

purposes  of  skilled  testimony,  428. 

Danger,  its  relation  to  confinement, 
177. 

Deaths  from  insanity,  not  accurately 
represented  in  hospital  statistics,  82 ; 
how  their  proportion  is  obtained  by 
Tuke,  .83;  causes  of,  vaguely  ex- 
pressed, 84. 

Delinquency,  often  the  result  of  cere- 
bral imperfection,  16,  47,  48. 

Delusion,  a  legal  test  of  insanity,  142, 
207;  not  always  recognized  after 
recovery,  129,  130;  definition  of, 
143;  uot  to  be  confounded  with 
singularities  of  belief,  144;  not  re- 
garded as  a  valid  defence,  262. 

Demented  persons,  can  play  at  whist 
and  other  games,  323 ;  observe  little 
proprieties  and  usages,  334. 

Denman,  Lord,  decision  respecting 
confinement,  173. 

Depression,  in  relation  to  recovery,  136. 

Development  of  disease,  true  doctrine 
of,  40;  sometimes  rapid,  57. 

Devil,  personality  of,  146;  once  sup- 
posed to  cause  insanity,  208. 

Disease,  manifested  by  disturbance  of 
function,  53;  time  of  its  beginning 
uncertain,  76 ;  Dr.  Thurnam  on  this 
point,  78;  how  transmitted,  see 
Transmission. 

Dix,  Miss,  notice  of,  11. 

Drunkenness,  a  symptom,  as  well  as 
cause  of  mental  disease,  35. 

Eccentricity,  42,  154. 


Eldon,  defends  his  transactions  with  the 
King,  466 ;  charged  with  preventing 
the  junction  of  Fox  and  Pitt,  469. 

Epilepsy,  sometimes  manifested  by 
unconsciousness  without  convulsion, 
274;  its  effect  on  the  mind  in  its 
early  stages,  not  much  studied,  279 ; 
always  annuls  legal  responsibility, 
281." 

Erskine,  Lord,  relates  a  case  of  excus- 
able homicide  prompted  by  revenge, 
288. 

Excitement  in  relation  to  recovery, 
136. 

Executive,  proper  occasion  for  his 
interposition,  276;  not  likely  to  ap- 
point most  suitable  men  as  commis- 
sioners, 422. 

Experts,  their  testimony  influenced  by 
training,  habits  of  study,  experience, 
410;  not  infallible,  413;  not  biassed 
by  pecuniary  motives,  418;  how 
they  are  engaged,  419;  should  not 
be  appointed  by  the  Executive,  422; 
nor  by  the  courts,  424;  not  now 
examined  in  the  best  way,  427; 
every  one  not  an  expert  who  pro- 
fesses to  be  one,  421 ;  their  function 
not  to  be  assumed  by  judges,  430. 

Farren,    writes    about    Shakespeare's 

mad  folk,  483. 
Flavel,  extract  from,  162. 
Fletcher's  representation  of  insanity, 

529. 
Fools  of  Shakespeare,  502. 
Friends,  establish  hospitals  in  York  and 

Frankford,  8. 
Fyler,  case  of,  278. 

Gall  and  Spurzheim,  contributed  much 
to  our  knowledge  of  insanity,  27. 

Gardiner,  Colonel,  his  vision,  149. 

George  III.,  bis  natural  traits,  434; 
first  became  insane  in  1765,  435; 
next  attack  in  1788,436;  incidents 
of  his  convalescence,  438,  448;  his 


IXDEX. 


555 


gibe  at  Willis,  440;  abused,  he  said, 
by  his  attendants,  441:  was  re- 
strained by  strait-jacket,  442;  gave 
sign  of  convalescence  by  reading, 
448;  bent  on  reading  Lear,  453; 
allowed  to  shave,  451;  nnd  see  his 
family,  453;  attacked  in  1801,  456; 
recovers  in  a  few  months,  457;  at- 
tacked again  in  1804,  460;  continued 
capricious  and  headstrong  after  ap- 
parent recovenr,  463:  the  last  two 
attacks  longer  than  they  were  sup- 
posed to  be,  463;  continued  in  both 
to  exercise  powers  of  sovereignty, 
464;  dislikes  the  Willises,  460;  wants 
to  read  bills  before  signing  them, 
467;  is  attacked  again  in  1810,  469; 
near  dying,  436:  has  various  delu- 
sions, 472;  had  become  blind,  477; 
impatient  to  resume  his  regal  func- 
tion?, 471 ;  selects  the  music  of  a 
concert,  472;  condition  during  his 
last  years,  479;  approves  of  strait- 
jackets,  443. 

Ghosts  of  Shakespeare  not  meant  to  be 
visible,  527. 

Goethe,  his  theory  of  Hamlet,  508. 

Gilchrist,  C.  J.,  his  decision  respecting 
confinement,  171. 

Goss,  case  of,  209. 

Greenwood,  case  of,  120. 

Grey.  Earl,  attacks  Eldon  for  allowing 
the  King  to  exercise  regal  powers, 
465. 

Hale,  Lord,  on  partial  insanity,  228. 

Hallucinations,  how  distinguished  from 
delusions,  145;  how  they  are  some- 
times excited,  148,  150;  their  fre- 
quency, 225 ;  their  true  nature  known 
to  Shakespeare,  528. 

Hamlet,  really  insane,  504;  how  re- 
garded by  Goethe,  508:  by  Hudson, 
509;  theory  of  insanity  explains  his 
conduct,  507,  519. 

Hardness  of  feeling  exhibited  by  the 
insane  towards  friends,  138. 


Harris,  case"  of,  282. 

Heberden,  Dr.,  describes  the  King's 
insanity,  475. 

Herbert,  Lord,  his  vision,  149. 

Hereditary  taint,  its  various  forms  and 
stages,  51 ;  how  recognized,  52  :  may 
remain  latent,  52 

Heredity,  its  tendency  to  abolish  devi- 
ations from  the  normal  type,  44. 

Hinchman  v.  Richie,  176. 

Hospitals  for  the  insane,  established  in 
Pennsylvania,  6,  8,  17;  have  im- 
proved our  knowledge  of  healtby 
mind,  13;  danger  of  crowding  them, 
18;  duty  of  the  community  to,  23; 
have  become  pleasant  abodes,  179; 
intended  for  incurables  as  well  as 
curables,  180;  prejudices  against 
them,  198. 

Hudson,  his  theory  of  Hamlet,  509. 

Hunter.  Dr.  William,  on  infanticide, 
286. 

Hypothetical  cases,  428. 

Impatience  in  relation  to  recover}',  134. 

Insane,  the,  their  condition  before  the 
era  of  hospitals,  4;  in  Catholic  coun- 
tries, kept  in  old  monasteries,  7; 
circumstances  leading  to  reform,  10; 
the  State  obliged  to  assume  their 
care,  11;  hospitals  solicited  by  31  is s 
Dix,  11;  State  bound  to  provide  for 
all.  not  a  part,  18;  number  of,  in 
Massachusetts  and  in  Pennsylva- 
nia, 19;  the  common  law  on  their 
confinement,  170;  their  propensity 
to  mischief,  178,  402;  too  proud  to 
acknowledge  their  delusions,  128; 
in  most  States  committed  by  magis- 
trates, 193;  in  some  by  jury,  194: 
most  of  them  regarded  by  somebody 
as  sane,  196;  not  deterred  from 
crime  by  fear  of  punishment.  206; 
can  distinguish  between  right  and 
wrong,  227;  sometimes  deny  their 
acts,  248;  sometimes  provide  against 
their  consequences,  249;  unable  to 


556 


INDEX. 


defend  themselves  in  criminal  suits, 
262;  some  apparently  recovered, 
den}'  they  have  ever  been  insane, 
and  are  bitter  towards  all  who  treated 
them  as  insane,  309;  may  under- 
stand the  terms  and  not  the  merits 
of  a  question,  333;  may  possess  all 
the  mental  faculties,  memory,  judg- 
ment, &c,  336;  fond  of  charging 
others  with  wrong-doing,  356;  will 
talk  with  strangers  about  their  pri- 
vate affairs,  362;  given  to  practical 
inconsistencies,  364;  their  mental 
processes  resemble  dreaming,  496; 
they  give  utterance  to  all  thoughts 
alike,  497. 

Insanity,  what  it  means,  3;  its  con- 
nection with  organic  qualities  of  the 
brain  overlooked,  26;  a  matter  of 
blood,  38;  generally  the  product  of 
more  than  one  generation,  41;  dis- 
tinguished from  depravity,  56;  di- 
vided into  old  and  recent,  75 ;  mis- 
take respecting  the  range  of  its 
morbid  influence  on  the  mind,  182; 
appears  under  two  general  forms, 
98 ;  supposed  by  some  to  be  always 
attended  by  intellectual  derange- 
ment, 104,  106;  how  proved,  115; 
once  mistaken  for  some  other  disease 
or  the  work  of  Satan,  203,  208;  its 
range  of  operation  on  the  mental 
faculties,  227 ;  better  understood  by 
novelists  and  poets  than  by  meta- 
physicians, 434;  plea  of,  262;  remis- 
sion in  the  early  stage,  131. 

Interdiction,  to  be  avoided  if  possible, 
190;  opinion  of  English  Commis- 
sioners in  Lunacy  respecting  it, 
191. 

Irresponsibility,  no  single  test  of,  213; 
Judge  Shaw's  tests,  226. 

Irreverence,  somewhat  conventional, 
162. 

Jarvis,  Dr.,  on  transitory  mania,  253 ; 
his  census  of  the  insane,  19. 


Johnson,  Dr.  Samuel,  his  hallucination, 
150;  represents  a  case  of  monomania 
in  Rasselas,  544. 

Judges  should  not  assume  the  func- 
tions of  experts,  430. 

Kellogg,  writes  about  Shakespeare's 
mad  folk,  483. 

Language,  should  be  used  with  pre- 
cision, 88. 

Lear,  character  of  his  insanity,  486. 

Lecky,  Mr.,  remark  respecting  mental 
pathology,  15. 

Legislation  on  confinement  of  the  in- 
sane, in  Pennsylvania,  Massachu- 
setts, Rhode  Island,  &c,  200;  act  of, 
recommended  by  superintendents  of 
nospitals,  200 ;  what  is  really  needed, 
201. 

Lunacy,  English  Commissioners  of, 
nature  of  their  duty,  405. 

Macbeth  and  wife,  their  cases  described, 
525,  528. 

Madge  Wildfire,  character  of  her  in- 
sanity, 534. 

Maine,  disposal  of  persons  in,  charged 
with  crime,  427. 

Mania  transitorjr,  Dr.  Walker's  case, 
286;  its  existence  denied,  252. 

Mann,  Horace,  declares  the  pauper  in- 
sane to  be  wards  of  the  State,  9. 

McNaughton,  his  case  referred  to,  110. 

Mendacity  of  the  insane,  296. 

Menstrual  periods,  accompanied  by 
increased  excitement,  141. 

Mischief,  propensity  of  the  insane  to, 
178,  402. 

Mistake  as  distinguished  from  delusion, 
346. 

Moral  insanity,  not  dependent  on 
phrenology,  97;  described  by  Pinel, 
99;  admitted  by  most  of  the  best 
observers,  99;  not  depravity,  106, 
107;  its  name  disliked,  112;  ten- 
dency thought  to  be  bad,  114,  117. 


INDEX. 


557 


Moore,  case  of,  174,  18S. 

Nichols,  Dr.,  opinion  in  the  Harris  case, 

283. 
Non-restraint,  not  supported  by  George 

III.'s  case,  478. 
Noma,  her  case  described,  542. 
Nottidge  v.  Ripley,  171. 
Nyce  v.  Kirkbride,  173. 

Oakes,  case  of,  174. 

Ophelia,  her  case  described,  524. 

Opinions,  medical,  given  in  writing, 
316;  unanimity  in,  not  to  be  ex- 
pected, 411;  of  ordinary 'witnesses 
sometimes  admitted,  417. 

Otway,  fails  in  his  illustrations  of  in- 
sanity, 498. 

Paralysis,  its  effects  discussed  in  the 
Parish  case,  315;  its  manifestations, 
318;  loss  of  voice  in,  supplemented 
by  gestures,  writing,  &c,  328:  indi- 
cated by  irritability,  331;  leads  to 
petulance,  freaks  of  passion,  339;  a 
common  termination  of  insanity, 
367. 

Partnership  with  God,  156,  165. 

Pathology,  mental,  throws  light  on 
healthy  mental  operations,  14;  also 
on  moral  and  social  questions,  16. 

Pellico,  his  hallucinations,  150. 

Pennsylvania,  the  first  State  to  provide 
for  the  insane,  5;  its  constitution 
authorizes  confinement  of  the  insane, 
176. 

Perley,  C  J.,  decision  in  State  v.  Pike, 
213. 

Pollock,  Sir  Frederick,  decision  re- 
specting confinement,  172. 

Psychology,  its  study  assisted  by  men- 
tal pathology,  123. 

Peeovery,  often  confounded  with  im- 
provement, 73;  affected  by  various 
accidental    circumstances,    72;    not 


exactly  defined,  74;  proportion  of, 
81;  not  always  followed  by  recogni- 
tion of  delusions,  129,  130;  fre- 
quently imperfect  in  bodily  diseases, 
297. 

Redfield,  C.  J.,  on  strange  wills,  154. 

Reformers,  run  to  extremes,  393. 

Remission,  its  occurrence  in  the  early 
stage  of  insanity,  131. 

Restraint,  true  doctrine  of,  393,  400. 

Reynolds,  Sir  Joshua,  his  hallucina- 
tion, 150.    ' 

Richardson,  his  success  in  representing 
insanity,  547. 


Sane  persons,  supposed  to  be  confined, 
296;  scarcely  one  authentic  case, 
198. 

Science,  conclusions  of,  change  with 
increase  of  knowledge,  414. 

Scott,  happy  in  his  illustrations  of  in- 
sanity, 534. 

Seduction,  its  connection  with  insan- 
ity, 286. 

Sexual  influences,  in  connection  with 
insanity  and  crime,  285. 

Shakespeare,  well  acquainted  with 
morbid  psychology,  124;  how  he 
studied  it,  485;  fond  of  delineating 
it,  518. 

Shaw,  C.  J.,  decision  in  the  Oakes  case, 
174,  310;  in  the  Rogers  case,  210, 
226. 

Sheridan,  ridicules  Willis,  446. 

Simulation  of  insanity,  can  be  detected, 
218;  how  distinguished  from  real 
insanity,  301,  304,  501,  505. 

Spiritualism,  worth  investigating,  272. 

Spurzheim  on  insanity,  186. 

Statistics,  applicable  to  facts,  not  to 
opinions,  66;  imply  more  than  a  pro- 
cess in  arithmetic,  68;  applied  to 
recoveries,  72;  applied  to  deaths, 
81;  wrongly  regarded  as  approxi- 
mations to  truth,  95. 

Stephen,  on  the  plea  of  insanity,  205. 


558 


INDEX. 


Stewart,    thinks   insanity   contagious, 

182. 
Story,  Judge,   decision  in  a  case  of 

infanticide,  286. 
Suicide,  committed  impulsively,  102; 

contemplated  by  a  large  proportion  of 

the  insane,  511. 
Suspicion,  a  common  trait  of  insanity, 

353. 


Tables  of  causes,  unreliable,  33,  37, 
84  et  seq.  ;  often  reflect  the  special 
views  of  their  makers,  92. 

Temperament,  insane,  150. 

Tendency  to  disease  is  transmitted, 
49;  what  becomes  of  it,  49;  how 
distinguished  from  natural  qualities, 
54;  practical  consequences,  58. 

Testimony,  skilled,  charged  with  being 
contradictory,  411,  414;  and  venal, 
418;  must  sometimes  be  discre- 
pant, 413;  decried  by  men  of  cul- 
ture, 413 ;  said  to  distract  the  minds 
of  the  jury,  416;  how  obtained  in 
foreign  countries,  425;  its  purposes 
frustrated  by  cross-examination, 
428;  sometimes  given  in  writing, 
430. 

Townley,  case  of,  60,  261. 

Transmission,  hereditary  in  animals 
and  'plants,  39;  how  it  modifies 
diseases,  39,  41;  and  tendency  to 
disease,  43;  cannot  perpetuate  all 
the  traits  of  both  parents,  43;  ab- 
normal deviations  die  out,  44. 


Unanimity  of  opinion   in  skilled  evi- 
dence, 411. 


Unconsciousness,  used  with  uncertain 
meaning,  259. 

Virginia,  the  first  State  to  provide  a 
hospital  specially  for  the  insane,  7. 

Walker,  Dr.  C.  A.,  his  case  of  transi- 
tory mania,  286. 

"Walker,  Dr.  W.  J.,  testifies  in  the  Rog- 
ers case,  221. 

Wharton  and  Stille',  on  confinement, 
177. 

Willis,  Dr.  Francis,  called  to  attend 
George  III.,  439;  applies  restraint, 
442 ;  described  by  Wraxall  and  Miss 
Burney,  439 ;  his  physic  ridiculed  by 
Sheridan,  446;  allows  the  King  to 
shave,  451;  his  character  and  dis- 
position, 454;  his  traditionary  re- 
plies to  Burke  and  Sheridan,  452; 
his  establishment  described,  456; 
his  compensation,  456,  457  ;  called  in 
in  1801,  but  soon  ceased  his  attend- 
ance, 457. 

Willis,  John,  employed  in  the  attacks 
of  1788  and  1801,  440,  456. 

Willis,  Robert,  employed  in  the  at- 
tacks of  1801  and  1810,  456,  474. 

Willis,  Thomas,  employed  in  the  at- 
tack of  1801,  456. 

Wills,  how  affected  by  hostility  to  re- 
lations, 345. 

Winslow,  on  delusions,  153. 

Winthrop,  Governor,  on  a  case  of  in- 
sanity, 208. 

Witchcraft  explained,  151. 

Woodward,  Dr.,  his  account  of  Rogers, 
220. 

Writing  with  left  hand,  soon  acquired, 
328. 


Cambridge :  Press  of  John  Wilson  and  Sou. 


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